Yes, I read a book about magical cats that help solve mysteries. In fact, as far as mystery series go, the premise isn’t that far out there. There are all sorts of animal-themed mystery series, and most of the animal characters have personalities that make them more human and smart than any Homo sapiens character. Making these cats magical makes them more believable, because of course magical cats will be smart and solve mysteries. It’s weird how that happens.

Curiosity Thrilled the Cat centers around librarian Kathleen Paulson (you will find a surprising amount of librarians as mystery-solvers in the various series, though my relatives who are actual librarians haven’t bothered to solve any murder mysteries. Lazy bums!), who has made a big change to her life by moving to Mayville Heights, Minnesota, to get away from her Boston life, largely due to her boyfriend returning from a vacation married. Kathleen overseas a big library restoration project, and also adopts two stray kittens she found. The cats Owen and Hercules each have their own personalities, Owen being a catnip fiend while Hercules is more serious.

Of course, it isn’t a murder mystery without a murder, and thus the special guest for the big Mayville Heights music festival winds up dead, and Kathleen finds the body and becomes a suspect. Which is sort of odd, because everyone else in town seems to have reason to not like the guy, AND someone is trying to off Kathleen.

A good first entry into a series, with several supporting characters including the ever-important possible romantic interest. The cats have distinct personalities, and the town has a few mysteries of its own that will probably factor into later books. The book loses bonus points as I correctly guessed the murderer several chapters before the reveal. The series is geared more towards a female audience, what with the yoga classes and girl talk, but it’s not so overwhelming that guys will be tossing the book aside.

And I’m not kidding about there being a variety of mystery series. In a quick browse of the aisle at the local Barnes & Noble, I found mystery series including cats in libraries, coffee houses, sewing, antiquing, victorian magic, home renovation, dogs in trouble, cats in trouble, cookie baking, donut shops, pie making, cats who aren’t magical or pets of librarians but also solve mysteries, vampires, White House gardeners, chefs, and community theater. Those are just the ones I noticed. All things considered, a mystery series about magical cats is downright normal. And as I’m starting to get into mystery books to make up for science fiction producing less series that interest me, I have an embarrassment of riches to choose from.

I look forward to future installments of the series, which is good because book 2 came out September 6th!

Books I Done Been Reading! name shamelessly stolen from Vault of Buncheness