Episode 18 - The Cat Who Blew the Whistle

Episode 18 - The Cat Who Blew the Whistle 

Taking place only a few weeks after the Breakfast Island Debacle, The rich and powerful of Moose County have donated $500 a ticket (just shy of $900 today) to ride behind “Old Number 9” on her maiden voyage, with all proceeds benefiting the scholarship fund at the new community college.  The engine is an original from the glory days of Moose County’s mining past, lovingly restored and supposedly the start of a new industry for Moose county - train tourism! But alas, we are warned that the Party Train’s maiden voyage is also its last.

CONTENT WARNING:  The solution to this mystery involves a possibly trans person who is not treated with sensitivity or frankly reality, as is to be expected unfortunately, from the early 90s.  In place of the dead author, I can only say I’m sorry.

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There is so much to unpack in this book - Qwill has really settled into Pickaxe, he has history there and LJB has been writing these books long enough she has possibly started to repeat herself on some points.  Because of this, I'm not doing a "new faces" bit because most of the book is new faces we don't see again!

Interesting factoid - Floyd Trevelyan made his money by selling his construction business to XYZ enterprises…

We get an update on Breakfast Island - XYZ has abandoned the project and the K Fund is reforesting the island to allow mother nature to restore it to its original pristine beauty.  The remaining B&Bs will be used as youth hostels and summer camps for the new college. The locals will be left alone and the summer estates will have their taxes raised. 

This is the first appearance of Kabibbles - a crunchy treat made by Celia Robinson from Down Below, equally delicious to cats and humans. Described by Mildred as croutons with garlic salt, parmesan cheese, red pepper and Worcestershire Sauce (which apparently has anchovies in it, which is why the cats love it).

I made mention of Liz's gift to Qwill of her father's Twistlewig rocking chair. Here are some images to give you an idea of this gorgeous style of chair making!

Homer Tibbet is back to work as the Moose County Historian and it’s once again stated that he has a shot of brandy in his coffee flask. He gives us background on Sawdust City, the Trevelyans and more various local curses. 

Qwill finally puts a name to the distinctive dialect spoken by Moose County old-timers, especially if they lived in the smaller towns around Pickaxe - this is Old Moose and something LJB dives very deep into in later books as Qwill starts interviewing more old-timers. 

The Community College has a name and a very single distinguished president - we meet Dr. Prelligate, president of Moose County Community College (MCCC). 

Polly - Polly actually brought Qwill a present from Oregon- a set of hand-painted duck decoys!  Her decision to build a house is not a good one - She is so obsessed it’s scary and it’s no wonder she makes herself sick.  She at one point mentions wanting a berm between the house and the main road for privacy, but doesn’t want it to look landscaped and she asks Qwill how to do it - Qwill responds that one calls Kevin Doone, who went to horticultural college to learn how to do just that rather than exhausting oneself.  This makes me laugh, because it’s very similar to my father’s advice on how to change a tire… In the midst of her stress about the house, she still finds time to be jealous of Celia Robinson, and corrects Qwill’s Shakespeare pronunciation - Apparently it’s Ti-Tain-ia, as opposed to his Tih-tahn-ia, according to Polly’s Shakespeare scholar father. 

Qwill seems to have forgotten he was nearly killed by a Trevelyan builder (Birch Tree ran him off the road, and wanted to brain him and dump him down a mine shaft to protect Alexander and Penelope Goodwinter - the cat Who played Post Office) I realize that everyone should be given a chance, but I personally would have approached someone related to a person who tried to kill me with a healthy dose of caution. 

There’s actually a lot of “Do you remember” to the reader in this book - references to the Fitches in West Middle Hummock, Qwill’s bike accident near the Buckshot mine. We also get the return of Dr. Herbert, Hixie’s doc from when she broke her foot- but he’s now dating the Lanspeak’s daughter, Dr. Diane (Hixie says he was perfect - perfectly boring, and she left him). Lots of memories of Dennis Hough, the architect of Qwill’s barn, although apparently his wife’s refusal of his body isn’t commonly known because when Fran asks if Qwill thinks he would have stayed in Pickaxe if he’d lived, Qwill curtly points out that his family was in St. Louis. And according to an ad in the Something, Otto’s Tasty Eats is still in business!  Also, people run away to Switzerland a lot in these books… Harry Noyton, the Potato mountain crew, several Goodwinters...

The community college pops up a lot, including the introduction of their unofficial mascot- an orange and dirty white cat who turns out to be the Wilmot’s cat, Oh Jay. The Wilmots say the college can have him…

I often make jokes about Joy in Mudville, but that’s actually a town in Moose County apparently, where the party train departs from and returns too.

We learn a bit about small town journalism- Arch wants to run the splashy story about the credit union on page one, but gets outvoted by Junior Goodwinter, who knows the motto- Don’t make bad news worse.

Hold, or cut bowstrings! Originates from military terms when you could either hold position and fight, or cut your bowstrings so the enemy couldn’t use them when you retreated. 

Officially joining a Scottish clan apparently requires proving relations, paying dues and debating the purchase of a kilt and kit. Qwill is undecided about the kilt.

A slight error - Celia calls to tell Qwill she’s in Lockmaster, and Qwill responds that she’s only 30 miles away.  But because of Cat Who Knew a Cardinal, we know that Lockmaster is actually 60 miles away.  Ooops. 

Oh boy - the Penn/Trevelyan family.  I had to leave out a lot of the drama LJB dives into, including one wildly dramatic moment where Florrie crashes all of Floyd’s model trains, scaring Celia and Wrigley the cat who are visiting. This on top of Floyd and Florrie getting married in the engine cab of a running train in overalls, causing her father (Ozzie) to refuse to see her again, and forcing her mother to cut off all contact as well. 

The Case of Nella Hooper - hoo boy.  The man dressed as a woman villain trope was not a good look at the time this book was written, and it’s only gotten worse after 20+ years.  Plus, the assumption leap from Hermaphrodite to “Man dressing as Woman”  seems to be just plain wrong - Qwill claims that Nella has “grown a beard and is going by Lionel” as if an intersex person just switches sex and hormones on and off like a light switch. To me sounds like Nella could have been a really good passing drag queen or cross-dresser who then changed to male clothes and let their facial hair grow. But any kind of distinction in the world of Men in women’s clothes or vice versa is apparently lost on LJB and therefore Qwill.  I am clearly not a biological expert, and I had to look up the history of this trope - which fortunately has been chronicled at Tvtropes.org.  Again, this depiction is wildly fictional and I’m really sorry to any readers who find this upsetting, because it IS upsetting and you deserve better representation.

Signs of the times - Junior wants to know when Qwill will get a word processor, but he maintains his love for his (now electric) typewriter. 

Cats will be cats - Yum yum steals pens, paperclips and other small objects, forcing Qwill to buy an antique pencil case to lock them away. When Qwill is still not getting Koko’s hints, Koko knocks Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot off the shelves... I don’t say this often, but Poor Bootsie - he has urological issues due to Polly’s overfeeding and his own boredom. Polly’s house has been rough on everyone. 

Paws - I give this book a solid three paws - it’s a good mystery and it’s revealed in a solid manner, and Publishers Weekly calls this book - the Best in the series!  (high praise when they usually call the books meandering or unbelievable.) However, the cheat of Nella Hooper annoys me, especially since everything we know about her is second or third hand and frankly, Hermia to Hermaphrodite is too big a leap, even for Koko.