One of the most up and coming and prolific types of mysteries are the animal mysteries. There are several long established authors of animal mysteries, and probably the Grand Dame of them all is Lillian Jackson Braun, but it seems that every week another one appears. I enjoy the animal mysteries because they are written, usually, with a great sense of humor.
As stated above, one of the longest standing authors of animal mysteries is Lillian Jackson Braun. The 20th book in her series is now out. It is called
The Cat Who Sang for the Birds. Braun's Cat Who series began in 1966 with a book called
The Cat Who Could Read Backwards. It introduced the main character, James Qwilleran (Qwill), a bachelor newspaper reporter, who had a drinking problem and was working given work by his childhood friend, Arch Ryker. KoKo, a male Siamese cat with a pedigree and a name too long to pronounce, belonged to the murder victim and Qwill ended up with him. KoKo has a high IQ and throughout the tail (pun intended) gives Qwill clues to solving the crime. Qwill realizes only after it has been solved that KoKo's actions were really because he knew who did it and wanted Qwill to know. Braun wrote two more books in the '60s and then retired. In 1986 she was pried out of retirement and began the extremely successful series again with
The Cat Who Saw Red. In the first book Qwill also acquired a female Siamese named Yum Yum. The three of them live together happily in the small town of Pickax in Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere.
KoKo and Yum Yum get along most of the time, but Yum Yum does not possess the intelligence that KoKo does. The brilliance of Braun's books is that she does not insult your intelligence by having the cats solve the mysteries directly. We are led along on a delightful journey where we know that KoKo has the answer, but uses signals to try to get the message across to Qwill. Qwill does recognize that KoKo is giving him clues and tries to interpret them and from time to time will share what he learns from Koko with the local constabulary.
The exact location of Braun's later Cat Who books remains somewhat of a mystery. The location is never directly referred to except as 400 miles north of everywhere. The town they live in is called Pickax and it is in Moose County. My personal belief is that Pickax lies on the upper peninsula of Michigan. I saw one review which said that it was somewhere in Maine. I do not think that it is in Maine because there is constant referral to the lake, which I believe to be Lake Superior. Lillian Jackson Braun is one of my favorite authors and I highly recommend her books. The series can be followed from first book to last or can be mixed around and you will not feel as though you came in in the middle. My suggestion is to read at least one of the later books before you take on the first three. By then you have a substantial respect for Quill and KoKo.
