The Cat Who Said Cheese (Cat Who...)

This is one of my faves when it comes to the Cat Who series. The clues (cheese names....I won't spoil it for you!) and interesting characters like Mr. Limburger who is as odious in personality as his name suggests, gentle Aubrey the bee keeper with a heart bigger than his brain, Onoosh, the mysterious woman. I won't go on, I might spoil things.
Other clues (what Qwill finds in his ready-to-cook turkey)and other goings on, and the "coverage" of the Pickax Hotel bombing....nicely narrated. Though through Koko's catly fits (which is caught on tape at the cheese tasting at Qwill's apple barn and distributed by others for the laughs) we start to piece together who, and then later why. It's a thoroughly enjoyable book.
As a long time fan of Braun I say this is one of her best. But start at the beginning...to see Qwill and Koko's genesis and struggles. What they had to do to get where they are now.

!This is one of the best of the "Cat Who" mysteries. George Guidall does his usual excellent job with his reading, and there are threads from previous and future Cat Who stories that the Lilian Jackson Braun fan will find especially memorable and tantalizing.

Somewhere about here in in the Cat Who... series I realized these mysteries had become a pleasant formula, familiar "friends" that might put me to sleep but not keep me awake. On the one hand, Qwilleran is now too self-consicious of the preternatural clues hinted by his Siamese cat, Koko. Qwill now doubts the psychic ability of Koko and disparages him, and so then do we because, on the other hand, Koko is giving less useful clues. Now too often his indications are recognized only in leisurely hindsight rather than helping to drive the plot forward. They are less mysteries that the reader can hope to solve from the cat's clues than they are comfortable explorations of how the authorities might come to recognize the prime suspect as we have done done fairly early on. There is also less romance in these later books in the big series, for Qwill has settled on one woman, who remains independent and, in fact, nearly absent from every other recent title. She goes off on separate vacations that often serve to raise Qwill's jealousy slightly, although nothing really comes from that because both people, and their friends, are so terribly nice.

Still, these are wonderfully comfortable, often amusing books, just with less mystery and hardly any suspense any more. However, this particular story, with its mysterious hotel bombing (if the Editorial Review hasn't already given away too much), is one of the few later ones with a touch of fear. As always, it is easy to overlook how extremely well writtten these bonbons are, slipping easily onto your reading list.

From beginning to end this book, as the title suggests, revolves around cheese. There is a new cheese and wine shop in Pickax, there is a cheese tasting at Qwilleran's home and the erstwhile journalist buys a nice old book about cheese that emits such a strong smell of Limburger that he has to bury it in the back yard. As if the cheese weren't enough liver & onions, mushrooms, honey and soup also play a part in this story and this is definitely not a book that you will want to read if you are on a diet.

There are several mysteries floating around in this book, none of which ever rise to the top and take on the role of being the major plot line. First, there is a mystery woman all dressed in black, then there is an explosion at the New Pickax Hotel which is followed by the murder of one of the town's merchants and then a fisherman is found stung to death by friendly bees. Despite all of this murder and mayhem however the most important mystery seems to involve Iris Cobb's missing cookbook. For those new to the series Iris Cobb was at various times Qwilleran's landlady, housekeeper and curator of the museum that he lived in until it burned to the ground. Iris was known far and wide for her excellent cooking and the handwritten cookbook where she kept her secret recipes. Shortly after Iris' death the cookbook went missing and now Qwilleran is hot on the trail. As normal, Koko and Yum Yum play major roles in this story and without their help Qwilleran would never have solved all of the mysteries. The interwoven mysteries in this book are built up sort of like a jigsaw puzzle and nothing makes sense until it all starts to fall into place.

This is not a book that I would recommend for someone who has not read any of the other books in the series because despite the several mysteries this book is mostly an update on the lives of the residents of Moose County. The mysteries themselves never really drew me into the story like some of the previous books in the series but the chronicles of Moose County always keep my attention. In short, this is not one of the stronger mysteries in this series but the antics of the cats and of the people of Moose County more than make up for the shallow mysteries. For that matter, the trials of Qwilleran as he attempts to cook a turkey are well worth the price of the book.

We've read three or four of Lilian Braun's ever so popular series about the fictional small town of Pickax, located 400 miles north of everywhere in Moose County. There, writer Jim Qwilleran is a featured columnist twice a week in the local rag. "Qwill" is a wealthy man about town who is a good hearted friend to most everyone, including his two Siamese cats, Koko and Yum Yum, who are supporting characters in all these stories. Usually there is little action other than Qwill seeking out whimsical events or people for his columns, amusing us along the way with the antics and culinary demands of his cats. Sometimes a light mystery or other mild farce is thrown in to suggest some semblance of plot, but most of these novels are really just a couple of hours of cozy and humorous reflections on life meant to pass the reader's time of day in a pleasant way while escaping into cat heaven. Usually one cat or the other does something to trigger a solution to whatever is perplexing Qwill lately, thus their leading roles in the titles and the stories -- and anyway, they demand it!

To our surprise, in "Cheese", a bomb goes off in the town's only hotel, killing a young woman who works there. Was it an attack on a mystery lady visiting there, who had local tongues wagging for days? And did a subsequent shocking event, as well as the curious reactions of a simple country boy beekeeper relate or not? In other words, this novel almost has a real plot and a modicum of suspense! Having more or less decided against further indulging in Braun's fiction, we were rewarded by grabbing this copy just for fun, by just that -- an unexpected couple hours of fun! Not bad!