Tortie Shorties on Mystery Monday

Meows from Mudpie!

What do you think of our brand spankin' new Tortie Shorties graphic? Four paws up to the amazing Ann at Zoolatry for giving it a more professional look.

We hope you enjoy our literary choices for this week :)

The No 2 Feline Detective Agency by Mandy Moore

From the publisher: Hettie Bagshot has bitten off more than any cat could chew. As soon as she launches her No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, she's bucketed into a case: Furcross, home for slightly older cats, has a nasty spate of bodysnatching, and three of the residents have been stolen from their graves.Hettie and her sidekick, Tilly, set out to reveal the terrible truth. Is Nurse Mogadon involved in a deadly game? Has the haberdashery department of Malkin and Sprinkle become a mortuary? And what flavour will Betty Butter's pie of the week be?In a haze of catnip and pastry, Hettie steers the Furcross Case to its conclusion, but will she get there before the body count rises - and the pies sell out.

Tortie Shorties Review: In a word, brilliant. While it goes without saying that my favorite mysteries are cat cozies, this series goes a step beyond that with the entire cast of characters comprised solely of cats. That's right...in this little world there are no people, just cats. Book me a one way flight, please!!!

Hettie Bagshot and her sidekick Tilly have opened up the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency in order to help pay the rent on their back room apartment in a bakery. A call comes in from Marcia Woolcoat, matron of the Furcross home for slightly older cats with a report of missing residents. Hettie's answer? "These cases can be tricky, though, and we rather prefer it if the missing cats are dead. That way, they don't mind as much if it takes us a while to find them." Luckily for everyone involved, these cats are already dead. Stolen from their graves, in fact, after taking advantage of Furcross's special "Dignicat" service, in other words assisted suicide. Yes, it sounds morbid, but trust me, this book is hysterically funny (even when more dead bodies start piling up) and I became completely engrossed in the cozy little lives of Hettie, Tilly and their friends.

Subsequent books in the series, Cat Among the Pumpkins, June's The Death of Downton Tabby and October's The Ghost of Christmas Paws are all available from Book Depository with worldwide free shipping. And once you read this first book I guarantee that the rest of the series will end up in your To Be Read pile!

Catch as Cat Can (A Sunny & Shadow Mystery) by Claire Donally

From the publisher: When a new seafood shop opens in Kittery Harbor, Maine, Sunny’s tomcat Shadow is on the hunt for tasty treats—until Sunny discovers a cold-blooded killer’s catch of the day.

Neil Garret is new to town, but his seafood shop is already going belly up. Working next door, former reporter Sunny Coolidge can’t help noticing the telltale signs. But checking on Neil one morning reveals something far worse for business than a lack of inventory—a mysterious man lies murdered in his freezer.

Sunny’s boyfriend, Chief Investigator Will Price, nets Neil as the prime suspect. But even when Sunny learns about Neil’s secret past, the open-and-shut case seems fishy. Now it’s up to Sunny to find the real culprit and get Neil off the hook.

Tortie Shorties Review: I need to preface this review by saying that I *adore* the Sunny & Shadow mystery series. Over the last few years I've found it to be one of the most under-rated cat cozies on the market today. Shadow and his thoughts on the humans in his life is simply adorable, and I love the relationship between Sunny and her father. The Maine setting is just the icing on the cake for me.

That being said, this fifth book in the series fell flat for me. I was sure it was going to be another winner in the beginning as Shadow found ways to sneak into town with Sunny because the new tenant next door to her office is a seafood shop and he's befriended fishmonger Neil because he dishes out tasty treats. Then Shadow finds himself in a very scary situation and we learn it's because of Neil's dangerous past, which also leads to a dead body in his freezer. But then between the witness protection program, the feds getting involved, and the ultimate motive for the murder, I just found the whole thing completely confusing. Plus with "big city" crime coming to small town Maine, the book lost some of it's "coziness" for me too.

With Penguin cutting so many cozy series, I can't help but feel this is most likely the last Sunny & Shadow mystery, which makes me even sadder. I hope I'm wrong. While this one was somewhat of a disappointment to me, I can't recommend the first four books in the series highly enough. Shadow is a heroic little guy sure to steal the hearts of cozy-reading cat lovers everywhere.