Wednesday, May 1, 2019

Book Review: No Cats Allowed by Miranda James

Mississippi librarian Charlie Harris and his Maine Coon cat Diesel are on their guard. Oscar Reilly, the new director at the Athena College library, is on a mission to cut costs and has set his sights on the archive and rare book collection. Reilly’s also out to replace Charlie’s fiery friend Melba with someone younger, but his biggest offense is declaring all four-legged creatures banned from the stacks.
With enemies aplenty, the suspect list is long when Reilly’s body is discovered in the library, but incriminating evidence throws suspicion on Melba. Charlie is convinced that his friend is no murderer, especially when he catches sight of a menacing stranger lurking around the library. Now he and Diesel will have to read between the lines, before Melba is shelved under “G” for guilty...[summary via Amazon]

Our favourite librarian and cat duo are back in the 7th book in the Cat in the Stacks Mysteries. There is a new director at the Athena College Library, and he's not making friends amongst the staff. In fact, Oscar Reilly, might be the most disliked man in Athena. When Oscar turns up dead, there is a whole library full of people that wanted to kill Oscar. It's up to Charlie and Diesel to hunt for clues and find a killer, before the killer strikes again.

I'm absolutely smitten with the crime fighting duo of Charlie and Diesel. I've been keeping up with their adventures from day one, and maybe it is because I'm also owner to a Maine Coon myself, but they're my absolutely favourite sleuth and cat pair!

In this adventure, they go up against a truly nasty man in Oscar Reilly. No one likes Oscar, even Charlie and Diesel. As a reader, I really enjoy a mystery where the victim is disliked. There is no surprise by the death, but there are lots of potential suspects. Aside from the enjoyment of reading a mystery, I absolutely love to try to find the killer before the sleuth! I managed to ferret out the killer before Charlie, but not quite connect all the dots. 

There is no mystery why this is one of my favourite series. As demonstrated in No Cats Allowed, this series is a well-paced mystery, with adorable characters (both in the human and four-legged variety), and the side plots of Charlie's life with his family always leave me wanting more. I'm currently a few books behind in the series, and for that I'm thankful as I now have more adventures with Charlie and Diesel right away!!

If you love cats and books about books, then pick up this series. However, it is best to do it justice and start with the first book, Murder Past Due.

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