The Cat Who Went Underground by Lillian Jackson Braun
The Cat Who Went Underground by Lillian Jackson Braun
Reading my first Jim Qwilleran book is a bit like finally meeting someone all my friends have raved about at a party and, well, only being able to think… 'naff jumper'. I feel that I should like it, and am more than ready to accept that the fault lies more with me than the book. I know, from friends, and from my brief time misspent as a bookshop crime buyer, this is a popular series of books, that fans snatch off the shelves as fast as Braun can write them, but I just couldn't get with the program. As one time owner of a number of stroppy and sullen cats, I found the spoilt Siamese cloying (and what respectable feline would tolerate being called Yum Yum?). Their much lauded crime detection skills seem limited to scratching suspicious trapdoors and finding dead bodies, as if any animal wouldn't be able to sniff out a corpse in their own house. Jim Qwilleran has the worst dialogue I've read in years - the man virtually speaks in paragraphs! - and the story (small town carpenters disappearing in mysterious circumstances) completely failed to grip.
I have a feeling that I'm missing the point. The book is so obviously part of a series that reading one in isolation is a bit like tuning into a TV show half way through; things which are irritatingly artificial may become charmingly quirky on further acquaintance, and for someone looking for an author to get into the prolific Braun may be just the ticket. My loss it may be, but I think I'll pass.
