Book Review: THE BLACK CAT DETECTIVES

Title: The Black Cat Detectives

Author: Kit Gray

Publisher: Crooked Lane Books

Pages: 304

My GoodReads Rating: 

Mila MacAllister is a 28-yo magician in a small town, Corvin’s Crossing, hoping to make it to the big league. On the morning of her performance, at which she expects to be scouted for a resort that is looking for performers, Mila finds three black kittens, with the mother nowhere in sight, in a box in the alley outside the club where she is to perform. She rescues them and takes them to the vet and decides to adopt them.

That evening, Mila’s successful performance comes to a sudden close when the body of her boyfriend and manager, Brandon, comes crashing through the roof to the stage, with Mila’s pocket knife protruding out of his chest.

 

The story is written in four PoVs, the 3^rd person PoV of Mila and the 1^st person PoVs of the three kittens named Bippity, Boppity and Boop. Bippity is female, Boppity is male, and Boop is non-binary. The other two kittens use they/them pronouns while referring to Boop.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

I liked the emphasis on friendships and the family ties you build for yourself.

I am no lover of cats, yet I was quite amused and intrigued by the antics of the kittens. The characterization of the kittens is done with a gentle touch. Bippity sees herself as a leader, born to lead her siblings. Boppity fancies himself as a great warrior and is always ready for battle. Boop is always gentle, preferring naps and cuddling to anything else. The curiosity, independence and vulnerability of the cats rang true, even though I know very little about cats.

The voices of the three kittens were strong and striking.

The descriptions of the foods cooked by Ms Fi, and Q and Mrs Scarborough all popped off the page.

In terms of diversity, Asia is well represented through Ms Fi and Becca Varma, Mila’s best friend.

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

The focus should have been on the murder mystery. Instead, the cats took up excessive space, causing a lot of repetition, given that there are three kittens and only one Mila.

Why Becca should be a Varma, an Indian origin surname, makes no sense. We see no evidence of her background or culture, making the name tokenish. She might as well have been white.

In keeping with what has almost become the trope of the genre, Mila was both smart and dumb.

I found the conclusion rather tame. The killer wasn’t convincing enough, nor was their rationale for killing.

The Physics-based superpowers of the kittens weren’t very clear.

Mila’s back story was minimal. It was unclear why she left her parents’ home. They neglected her, and led their own lives, but her trauma suggested something far worse. Also, where and how she learnt magic was something that wasn’t explained.

 

WHAT DIDN’T QUITE WORK:

In one place, Bopp had male pronouns used, possibly a typo that slipped past.

There is a whole chapter set at the vet’s where Mila takes the three kittens. This chapter was wholly unnecessary.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

This was a cozy mystery that ultimately ended up being more cozy and less mystery, with the kittens overshadowing the resolution of the mystery. 

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)

Book Review: WHEN THE RAIN CAME

Title: When the Rain Came

Author: Matt Eicheldinger

Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing

Pages: 314

My GoodReads Rating: 

Aurora, 17, lives with her foster parents, Niko and Jada, when the rain begins. A relentless mix of drizzle and downpour that scientists call an unprecedented global disaster. As the water levels rise, the mansion they live in gets flooded. Niko and Jada are preppers and they have prepared for the worst eventuality, with emergency bags all ready for use. They also impress upon her the rules. Rule no 1: You prep for you and no one else. Rule no 2: Two is one and one is none.

Niko and Jada provide for Aurora but show her no affection. One night, Jada lets her guard down and shows Aurora her vulnerable side. The next morning, Niko and Jada have disappeared, gone with their emergency bags. Once they have gone, Aurora finds a map to a place called the Hill, which promises a refuge. When the mansion is attacked by men with criminal intentions, Aurora escapes, intent on getting to the Hill.

Along the way, she befriends a young boy called Kota and learns of the Dark Pools, supposedly controlled by Shui gui, a supernatural entity, that swallow everything in their path. Both Aurora and Kota are in a vulnerable situation and they settle into a protective sibling vibe. For Aurora, who has never had a family, Kota is the nearest thing to one.

In the midst of terrifying challenges, the two learn to prioritise and think on their feet. Will they ever manage to get to the Hill? When they reach it, will they find it a place of safety or danger?

 

This is Book 1 of a trilogy, and is written in the 1^st person POV of Aurora.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The chapters are short. The author has done a wonderful job with the setting. The writing was urgent and atmospheric, making me feel sadness, fear and concern for Aurora and Kota.

The descriptions were beautiful:

Each drop explodes like tiny bullets, turning the surface of brown liquid into a roiling battlefield of ripples and waves.

When that sky meets the horizon of the water, steam rises in a ghostly fog, shrouding the scene in an apocalyptic mist.

Rain pounds everything in sight, a thousand tiny hammers drilling into the surface of the churning water.

The action keeps us on edge, as Aurora battles dangers as varied as cruel humans, wild animals and the wrath of nature. The characters’ actions and the description of the setting and the situation complement each other.

There is an ironic foreshadowing in the words, Today … ended as a memorable day. A good day. And maybe tomorrow will be even better, that piqued my interest.

The thing that struck me about this book, from the very first paragraph, was the voice of Aurora, how strong and expressive it was.

We get a sense of disaster and chaos, a dismantling of order. The disaster helps us understand what is truly significant, and how we humans chase the wrong things. Things that people owned and took pride in, cars, bicycles, fences, all trapped under the moving slush of filth and debris.

The tagline of the book 'If everything falls apart, what will you hold on to?' was something that the book succeeded in living up to.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

This book would have fit squarely under the genre of Climate-fiction, a genre of literature that is sorely needed these days, but no one, not even the preppers, ever addresses why it is raining for months on end.

The world is in chaos, and yet some systems are working. Even when Niko and Jada begin to run out of food and water, there is no mention of sanitation issues. In one building where the children take refuge, Kota uses the toilet, so sanitation is apparently fine. None of the characters talk about bodily discomfort issues. There is a nightmare on, and sewage entering homes should have been the first consequence.

There are some things that don’t make sense. How is a parking lot dry when tall buildings are flooded, with only the tips visible?

I would have liked to have had a little more back story about Kota. He seems to be a token diversity character. We are not told anything about his background, except that his grandmother has told him about the shui gui, spirits from Chinese folklore, while he calls his father Baba, a term for father in Indian, Middle Eastern and African cultures.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The situation isn’t rooted in time and place. We get no sense of when this is happening, a future time, or even a parallel earth.

When Kota steps into an abyss inside a building to get a canoe, Aurora gives him a flashlight which he clenches between his teeth, before swimming away. Moments later, both Aurora and another character, Markell, ask him a question, and he answers both questions easily. We are not told about him having taken the flashlight out of his mouth to answer.

Aurora didn’t act as if she was 17. She seemed to me to be younger, around 14 or 15. Also, for someone who has lived all her life in the foster system, she has no experiences, positive or negative, related to foster homes. Just an indifference to that part of her life, which is strange. Also, she never talks about herself in the near future, her plans for when she turns 18. This adds to the impression that she might be younger.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

Living in a city with poor infrastructure, I have seen enough of the damage that flooding can do to assess how much worse things could get when worst-case scenarios become real. There are some kinks that should have been edited out. Despite them, I enjoyed this story about a modern-day deluge of Biblical proportions.

(I read this book on Edelweiss. Thank you to the author, the publisher and Edelweiss.)

Book Review: A MOST PECULIAR PROVIDENCE

Title: A Most Peculiar Providence

Author: Angela Hunt

Publisher: Hunt Haven Press

Pages: 428

My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Twenty-six-year-old Joshua Donnelly lives in a small town called Peculiar, with his mother. He handcrafts wooden toys for a living. When she passes away unexpectedly due to a stroke, his world is upended. He decides to fulfill her last wish that he “fill the house with love” by getting a dog, Hoss.

Meanwhile, Heather Thomas and her boyfriend, Brett Steelhawk, of three years, are homeless and busking together near Peculiar. Heather is pregnant but Brett doesn’t want the baby. On their last day in town, she miscarries and then finds that Brett has abandoned her.

When Sarah, a vagrant, gives birth to a baby girl, she gets Heather to promise to hand over her baby to someone kind in Peculiar who will look after the baby. With no choice, Heather leaves the baby outside Josh’s front door. What happens next? Will Josh look after the baby? And is there any hope for Heather?

When Hoss digs up a human bone in Josh’s backyard, the past threatens to overshadow Josh’s happiness in the present. Who is responsible for the crime? And will Josh pay for it?

 

The story is told from the first-person past-tense PoV of the town police chief as well as in the third-person omniscient past tense.

 

WHAT I LIKED:

The story had a warm, fuzzy vibe to it from the very first sentence. I felt as if I knew and loved the characters. I particularly loved the similes:

Like loose change in a coffee tin.

Frost glazed the glass, glittering like crushed sugar.

This story had slipped past me like a cat burglar in socks.

 

I liked the character of Josh, even though he came across as a little odd. It was sweet that he got Hoss, a huge English mastiff, because he promised his mother that he would fill the house with love.

I particularly liked the scenes between Josh and baby Maggie. The narrator, through Josh’s actions, tells us how easy it is to care for an infant. You fed them, you changed them, you held them close. You kept them safe. You loved them.

 

Some more quotes that I liked:

When you pull on the past, it doesn’t come back gentle. It comes back hungry.

Sometimes when a man stops pacing, it means he's found a place to stand.

Order is a comforting thing, but it’s fragile. And when it cracks, strange, even miraculous things have a way of slipping through.

 

The book ends with fun recipes for Hoss’s Favourite Dog Treats, Josh’s Bologna Sandwiches, Josh’s Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Mama’s Homemade Lasagna, all written with dollops of affection and humour intertwined with life lessons and some easy philosophy.

 

WHAT I DIDN’T LIKE:

I felt a little note of dissonance when Heather and Josh met. Josh was so kind, and Heather’s animosity felt forced. Of course, the reasons are explained later, but I never got over my dislike of her.

There is an element of the fantastical that runs through this book, which is unfortunately not pursued. We learn early on that Josh has the power to heal, but it isn’t used with any kind of significance. The fact that he has the power to heal should have played a greater role in the plot.

 

WHAT DIDN’T WORK FOR ME:

The story felt very old-fashioned, even though it is set in 2006. There was no mention of mobile phones or the Internet or anything that would root it in this century.

 

ALL SAID AND DONE:

This was a sweet and gentle story well told.

(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)