Recently Read: The Cat Who Had 14 Tales (Cat Who...) by Lilian Jackson Braun

The Cat Who Had 14 Tales (Cat Who...) by Lilian Jackson Braun
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

SRP Why Bite: This is a lighthearted collection of whimsical stories about cats, and two or three darker ones.

This was not what I expected after having read The Cat Who Could Read Backwards. I thought this collection of short stories would be in the same vein as the series of mystery novels. Not so. Instead of tales of suspense and mystery, these were mostly whimsical tales about various cats, not unlike Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. A few stories included in this collection, such as “The Dark One,” “SuSu and the 8:30 Ghost,” and “East Side Story,” “The Sin of Madame Phloi” were darker, more sinister in tone. In fact, I would say they were downright macabre. Only a couple stories, in fact the first and last stories bookending this collection, were actual mysteries. A few stories touched on supernatural themes, such as witches and ghosts, but I was most surprised to discover one science fiction story. “The Cat Too Small for His Whiskers” was inventive and comical. I enjoyed that one particularly well.

Actually, I enjoyed most of the stories, but not all. The two that were actually mysteries reminded me much of the qualities that I liked in the first of The Cat Who … series. The last story, “Tragedy on New Year’s Eve,” was particularly interesting. It was written in the form of a series of letters from a mother to her son, in which she describes how she solved the mystery of a tragic car accident. The cat actually plays a minor role in the story and is not developed as much as a character as the cats in the other stories, but the principle human character is well developed and the plot itself shows Braun’s strength in developing a good mystery.

Like any collection of short stories, some are better than others. Overall, this is a good read if you like stories about cats, but maybe not so much if you don’t.


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