1983; 232 pages. Book 4 (out of 10) in the “Peter Shandy Mystery” series. New Author? : Yes. Genre : Amateur Sleuths; Murder Mystery. Overall Rating : 6½*/10.
Betsy Lomax’s cat, Edmund, has once again
brought something dead into the house.
Something red. Something furry. Probably a chipmunk or squirrel that he caught.
Hey, that red stuff looks like
human hair, not fur! Jeez, did Edmund
scalp somebody?
Ah, fortunately, it’s not real
hair, it’s a toupee. Betsy even
recognizes it; it belongs to one of her tenants, Professor Herbert Ungley. But that’s odd, he’s very vain about wearing
it. He wouldn’t be caught dead without
it. Betsy had better go check on
him. Maybe something’s happened to
Ungley.
Maybe Edmund caught the
professor, “dead with it”.
What’s To Like...
Something The Cat
Dragged In is set in the fictional town of Balaclava
Junction, located somewhere close to Boston.
It is home to a small university, Balaclava Agricultural College, where Peter Shandy, our
protagonist, is a professor. In his spare
time he solves murder-mysteries.
As the above introduction
indicates, the sleuthing starts immediately, when Betsy Lomax’s cat deposits
Professor Ungley’s hairpiece on the floor.
Ungley’s body is found behind the meetinghouse of a fraternal group called the
Balaclavian Society, which is where he was known to have given a speech earlier
in the evening. Sheriff Fred Ottermole
and Peter Shandy are summoned and an investigation begins.
The main question at the start is whether Ungley’s demise was an accident or due to foul play. For the possibility of it being a murder, the storyline provides us with lots of suspects and lots of motives. It was fun to watch our pair of sleuths make do with the skimpy resources a small town offers, and being a chemist by trade, I was happy to see the college’s chemistry professor, Professor Joad, contribute to the solving of the case via vital lab results.
Charlotte MacLeod infuses a
lot of wit into the text, courtesy of a number of quirky-but-quaint
characters. She also manages to slip in
a few more serious bits of insight, particularly those involving populist and
pro-agriculture topics. Plowing up
farmland to make way for more housing developments is a sore subject for her. Something The Cat Dragged In
is also a wordsmith’s delight: if you enjoy being introduced to new words, you’ll love this book. Some samples of new words (at least for me) are given below.
The ending is okay, although not exactly packed with action. Shandy comes up with a dubious
scenario, then skirts a few legalities to determine whether it’s the real
motive. Once that’s confirmed, it’s
just a matter of coaxing Sheriff Ottermole into assisting with the round-up of
miscreants. Things wrap up cozily.
Ratings…
Amazon:
4.3/5
based on 515 ratings and 46 reviews.
Goodreads: 3.92/5 based on 1,067
ratings and 69reviews.
Kewlest New Word ...
Shemozzle (n.): a state of chaos and confusion; a
muddle (Yiddish).
Others: Redd (v.); Welter (n.) Swivet (n.); Interlarded
(v.) Nobbling
(v.); Josser
(n.) Braw
(adj.).
Excerpts...
Professor Daniel Stott of the Animal
Husbandry Department, a man not easily aroused to wrath, had waxed hot in
defense of the genus Sus when somebody had been so injudicious as to
call Claude a swine. In Stott’s
considered opinion, the district would have been far better advised to elect a
sensible, well-disposed, right-thinking sow or boar to the seat Claude now
occupied. The local Plowmen’s Political
Action Committee was said to be taking Stott’s recommendation under advisement.
(loc. 781)
“Who are you?”
“My name is Shandy.”
“Well, well!” This must be the deposed soap king in
person. “The great Professor Shandy, as
I live and breathe, deigning to grace my humble abode. Edna Jean, you damn fool, why didn’t you have
brains enough to slam the door in his face?” (loc. 2494)
Kindle Details…
Something
The Cat Dragged In presently sells for $9.99 at Amazon. The other nine books in the series range in
price from $1.99 to $11.99, which is quite a wide
range. Charlotte MacLeod several other
series, including the 5-book Grub-&-Stakers series and the 12-book Sarah Kelling & Max Bittersohn
set.
“For your future
enlightenment, young lady, there’s only one ‘s’ in bastard.” (loc. 1528)
There are a couple things to
quibble about. Goodreads labels Something The Cat Dragged In a cozy mystery, and
certainly has that “feel” to it, except that there’s way too much
profanity. I counted 22 instances in the
first 25% of the book. To be fair
though, most of the cussing is courtesy of just one character, and there were
no f-bombs.
There are quite a few
characters to meet and greet, many of whom are introduced with absolutely no
backstory. I suspect this means they’re
recurring characters from the earlier three books in the series. There are also references to earlier
happenings, such as something involving “Silo Supporters”, but no details about
the incident are given. My
recommendation therefore is to read this series in order.
There were only a couple of
typos, such as staffs/staff’s and entree/entry, so I was impressed with the
editing. But the one instance of verbal Hispanic condescension, “Steppo asideo, sister”,
seemed dated.
All in all, this was an okay
tale, but it didn’t blow me away. The reader makes the sleuthing rounds with Peter, meets lots of interesting suspects, but if
you’re trying to solve the case before he does, forget about it. It’s beginning to dawn on me that this may be
a standard approach for cozy mysteries. I reminded me of “Murder She Wrote”.
6½ Stars. One last thing. Late in the investigation, Peter contemplates possible reasons for some odd actions by a few of the suspects. His first thought is that they’d been “blind drunk”, but he then wonders if they “smoked peyote” or were “growing hallucinogenic mushrooms” in some dusty corners of the meetinghouse. It made me wonder what kind of research Peter, and the author, did to entertain this possibility.
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