The Cat Who Did A Podcast

Episode 14 - The Cat Who Moved a Mountain   This is the second of what I call the Travel books - where Qwill tries to leave Moose County and regrets his decision. Qwill celebrates officially inheriting the Klingenschoen fortune (he’s officially a billionaire!) and decides to celebrate by spending the summer somewhere else - at the recommendation of the MacDiarmids (they publish the Lockmaster paper), he and the cats head for the Potato Mountains (not an actual location - although there is a Potato mountain in California).  He rents a 90 year old former inn - the entire thing, because that’s the only way he could find a rental that would take pets, and naturally, he stumbles across a land development scam, an illegal liquor ring, and a murder, with the wrong man in jail for it! We have our very first guest on the podcast - the delightful Meg Ralph (who has never read any Cat Who Books and gave us some great perspective from a newbie!) Listen to the Podcast here: https://ww...

Qwill gets his first big role as drama critic for the Theatre Club's production of Henry VIII - the production is great, but the director's a mysterious pill and soon he's found murdered in Qwill's orchard!  Despite some horsey distractions from Lockmaster, Qwill sets out to discover who killed Pickaxe's mystery man. Listen to the Podcast here:  https://thecatwhopodcast.podbean.com Oh this book - it's probably one of my favorites if the condition of my original copy is anything to go by (it's falling apart). Between the grandeur of the theatre, the horse racing, and the splendor of the octagonal apply barn, it's just a fun read. The mystery is a little secondary to the world of Moose County, and I am a little sad that we don't learn more about Van Brook's seedy side. Polly - she’s attempting to convert Qwill to Birdwatching...He buys a bird guide because it’s vintage with 200 color plates and only a dollar.  I don’t think she’s winning this one....

 Qwill and the cats head back down below for one last Junktown jaunt to save the aging Casablanca apartments.  Old friends, new enemies and scrabble tiles all come in to play when murder is at the game table. Listen to the Podcast here:  https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-64c78-f65b7a Old Familiar Faces - Robert Maus (now Roberto), Charlotte Roop, now elegantly dressed in beige and an expensive cameo, Amberina of the Three Weird Sisters, now divorced and decorating in early carboard boxes, Mary Duckworth, now in twinsets and pearls rather than red nails and blue kimonos, and the sassy Inga Berry, who greets Qwill by saying, “I’ll be damned if that isn’t the best looking mustache east of the Mississippi!” I still cannot believe that Qwill had never played Scrabble until this book.  This man brags about winning spelling bees and reading voraciously constantly, but no one, NO ONE ever introduced him to Scrabble?  I'd believe it more if he'd said he never enjoyed playing...

 Qwill is listening to Opera with the cats when he gets a terrified phone call from Mrs. Cobb.  He rushes to her rescue, but it's too late.  Now he has to discover if she's the victim of the Goodwinter Curse, or a much more mortal foe... Listen to the Podcast here: https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-5iigw-f5ccea

 Episode 10 - The Cat Who Went Underground We go back to where it all began for Qwill, the Klingenschoen Cabin on the lake!  Polly's in England for the Summer so Qwill packs up the cats and heads off for a summer in Mooseville, two years after he first visited and learned that he would inherit the Klingenschoen fortune.  His summer, however is filled with MIS-Fortune - missing carpenters, faulty plumbing, and even a Visitor or two!  But when a carpenter winds up dead and Qwill finds a serial killer's list in the cabin crawl space, it's up to him and Koko to clear up this mystery  (while Yum Yum catches mice).  Listen to the podcast here:  https://www.podbean.com/eu/pb-jjtmr-f522d1 Horoscopes are the theme of this book and the running gag is that Qwill doesn’t even know his sign.  So we hear a lot about other people’s horoscopes and what Qwill’s would have been if he paid attention to them. He's a Gemini, by the way, according to Mildred Hanstabl...

 Episode 9 - The Cat Who Sniffed Glue Welcome back!  Qwill joins the Theatre Club for their production of "Arsenic and Old Lace" but all is not well in Pickaxe.  We are reintroduced to the Fitch twins and all of their family drama and briefly lose the cats, but in the end, Pickaxe has a new theatre AND a new newspaper! Find the podcast here:  https://www.podbean.com/ew/pb-gkpkb-f4d325 Publisher's Weekly didn't care for this book:  " this [is a] tame, nonmysterious mystery… When Harley Fitch [is murdered, Qwilleran] doesn't discover anything, except for the spotted pasts of the deceased. Eventually, the killer attacks Qwilleran and his identity is made known; there are no clues, no logical way for the reader to figure out whodunit.  " It should be noted, LJB has used this same convention before, in the very first book, so it's not new to the series.  Should mysteries be solve-able by the reader?  I say not always, but what do you think?  Share...

 Welcome back to Pickaxe friends, where we meet Polly Duncan (Melinda got dumped and went to work in Boston) and we have Qwill's first Big One - the first big snow that starts blanketing Moose County from November until the thaw in April.  Senior Goodwinter dies suddenly in a car crash, leaving the future of the Picayune in the hands of Merry Widow Gritty, who wants to sell as soon as possible - so she can run away with her lover who also happens to be the buyer.  Qwill intervenes with the reappearance of Harry Noyton who manages to save the Picayune's name, but not the paper - a fire destroys the historic building and sends Qwill on a nosey mission to uncover the source. Iris Cobb is engaged, married and widowed in the space of one book, we meet the Old Timer's Club and there are more Hamlet quotes than you can shake a stick at! Find the podcast here: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/pw3xxx/The_Cat_Who_Did_a_Podcast_-_Episode_08_-_The_Cat_Who_Knew_Shakespeare9tbmm.mp3 My ...