I'd recommend Rita Mae Brown's series starring Mrs Murphy, the postmistress' cat or Marian Babson's Murder at the Cat Show. The Rose Quilt by Mark Pasquini is a historical mystery that you might like.
I love the idea of finding an isbn that starts with a 9! It does narrow it down considerably 😂 I will be reading some mysteries for March, but I'll fit them into the prompts as I go.
Carol Nelson Douglas wrote a lot of about 60 mysteries based in Las Vegas and you get to hear her cat, Midnight Louie's take on what's going on. He talks like Philip Marlowe calling his owner, Temple Barr, his "little dame."
Tony Hillerman wrote a bunch of mysteries set on American Indigenous reservations, with many featuring quilt-like weavings on the covers. It’s a stretch for the prompt, but if it gets you out of your comfort zone, it accomplishes the goal. 😺✌️
The Rachel Murdock series by DB Olsen written in the 40s are pretty good. The Cat Saw Murder is the first one. All of the titles have the word "cat" in them. She wrote them under a pseudonym - Dolores Hitchens. The Benni Harper series by Earlene Fowler from the 90s is a good old fashioned cozy series. Every book title is the name of a quilt pattern. Hope you find something you enjoy! For sure read some Val Mcdermid!!
For the Cat on the Cover prompt, check out Caroline Burnes, who wrote for the Harlequin Intrigue line and created a series that revolved around a cat named Familiar. Different couple, same cat each book. He's basically pitched as a cat detective. There's probably 15 or 20 books in the series and several are on Kindle. I'm currently reading No. 11 Familiar Double for the the retro romance readathon. Not great lit, but certainly entertaining. The older books are probably the better ones.
Like parisgreen4600 I also thought of Rita Mae Brown for a cat series - and talking cats ( and dogs) to boot . At least they only "talk" to each other and not to the humans ! Although it sounds dire RMB is a pretty good writer ( usually with a romance element ticking away).
My brother really enjoyed Rita Mae Brown (Sneaky Pie Brown) mystery books and has always wanted me to read them so that's what I plan to pick up for a cat on the cover. The first one is called Wish You Were Here.
Hello Olly! I love seeing you be more lenient with yourself as far as prompts, challenges etc. For cat mysteries, I think Rita Mae Brown has written a series (her coauthor is 'Sneaky Pie' Brown) - I haven't read any myself but it sounds worth a look.
I've read a lot of cat cozy mysteries and my favorite one as of 2023 is Nick and Nora Mysteries by T.C. LoTempio. Nick the cat is hilarious. There's a scene at the end of the first book with Nick that had me rolling in laughter. He helps solve the crimes with Scrabble tiles and he can read his previous owner's journal. Nora is an investigative journalist from Chicago and she uses her skills and connections to solve the mysteries. There is the murder mystery and the mystery of Nick's owner. There are spoilers for The Thin Man book and movie. Another great cat cozy mystery series is Second Chance Cat by Sofie Ryan. The cat Elvis is hilarious and there are senior citizens that get involved in solving the crimes. The senior citizens are hilarious too. It's so fun!
Can't go wrong with the cat who books.... but I do suggest the earlier ones! I read Catnap by Carol Nelson Douglas from the 90 which was pretty trashy but fun and easy to read. Also, Rita Mae Brown of Rubyfruit Jungle fame has a cat cozy series co written with her cat Sneaky Pie Brown. I've never read those but some interesting intersectionality there. I can't wait to hear what you think of Claire Dewitt and the City of the Dead. Very different tone than Come closer, but I love it so much!
I am planning to read my dad's collection of Dorothy Sayers mysteries. Clouds of Witnesses by Dorothy Sayers has a cat on the cover. I haven't read it yet, so I don't know how much the cat features in the book. The Nine Tailors has the word nine in the title and it is the ninth book in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. Susan Spann wrote a mystery set in 16th century Japan called Claws of the Cat. It is the first book of a series.
The only thing that comes to mind of all this prompts is The Nine-Tailed Fox by Martin Limón. I'm just gonna read Raymond Chandler because I've never read anything from him, but watched a bunch of his movies.
For the cat one, I think you should read The Twelve Angry Librarians by Miranda James. I don't read cozy mystery, but I always see it at work and I want to know what they're all angry about, so this request is for purely selfish reasons. For the quilt mystery, I think The Quilt City Murders by Bruce Leonard sounds interesting (and not too cozy). Or, if you want to try cozy mysteries, The Amish Quilt Shop Mysteries by Isabella Alan seems popular.
The Cat, The Quilt and The Corpse by Leann Sweeney exists on Kindle so that might solve a couple of prompts. If I were going rogue I'd offer The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler. I have the movie tie-in edition and it has an orange cat on the cover.
I love The Cat, The Quilt and The Corpse by Leann Sweeney and recommend. The main character is a cat quilter (makes quilts for cats) and she has 3 cats.
I knew the 2 were going to be the cat and the quilt prompts. I'm sure you'll get lots of recommendations for both but one you don't hear about much that I enjoy very much is the Southern Quilting series by Elizabeth Spann Craig.
Cows, Corn & Crime: A Fun Cozy Dog Gone Good Who Done It Mystery (A Fun Cozy Dog Gone Good Who Done It Short Read Mystery Book 2, Cattle Capers, Farm Crimes! the Moo-Sterious Disappearance of Cow. Goodnight Moo (A Buttermilk Creek Mystery Book 2). Some mysteries I found with cows on the cover
As it happens I read The Mystery of the Blue Train fairly recently. It’s the Christie book that she herself liked least, probably because she wrote it around the time of her disappearance. It’s far from her worst, but it is one of the weaker Poirots, with a silly “intrigue” angle that feels like it’s out of a Hardy Boys novel and one or two characters who feel more like descriptions of clothes and hair than people. But it’s enlivened by a likeable female protagonist and some fun interwar elements.
For a mystery with a cat on the cover I recommend Elementary, She Read by Vicki Delany. Modern Canadian mystery taking place in a bookshop, complete with cantankerous bookshop cat :-)
Hi Olly. I haven’t read either of these yet, but I did buy Ghostly Paws by Leighann Dobbs for the cat on the cover and Quilt or Innocence by Elizabeth Craig for the quilt prompt. Again, I haven’t read them yet, but they look like quick, easy reads, and they fulfill the prompts. 😊
Looks like you're going to have a lot of fun, Olly! As far as "Quilts" Mystery suggestions, I only have two suggestions: Red Threads, by Rex Stout. The cover of the 1995 Bantam mass market paperback edition has what I take to be a First Nations design quilt on the cover. I mean, you have "threads" in the title, so that's a good start, right? Fun fact: This is my favourite Rex Stout novel, even though it features Inspector Cramer, not Nero Wolfe. A Gentle Murderer, by Dorothy Salisbury Davis. Okay, so, the cover of the most recent edition - Library of Congress Crime Classics/Poisoned Pen Press - shows a stylized version of the outside of an apartment complex, complete with fire-escapes and stuff hanging out windows to dry in the sun. I'd call that blanket thingy with the stripes pattern a quilt! Next - "Cats" Mystery suggestions: The Cat Saw Murder, by Dolores Hitchens - or her other one called The Alarm of the Black Cat. Cats on the cover (certainly of the most recent editions), cat prominent in the book, and a cool elderly amateur sleuth (getting help from the cat!). Cat's Paw, by Roger Scarlett (pen name for two women co-authors). Cat on the cover of most recent edition...I'm having a little trouble remembering how much cat is actually in the book. But hey, "Cat" in title, too! The Ginger Cat Mystery, by Robin Forsythe (somewhat humourous, author did time in prison for something like embezzlement I think it was, worked on his first book while behind bars - this one is from that series). Knock, Murderer, Knock!, by Harriet Rutland, had a recent edition (Dean Street Press, like the Robin Forsythe above) teeming with felines on the cover...but here again, I can't recall how much a cat or cats played into the plot (which I loved). That's a catty cover, though. Felidae, by Akif Pirincci. The Spotted Cats, by William G. Tapply A Bid for Fortune, by Guy Boothby (see cover of Oxford University Press Edition, 1996) The Sergeant's Cat, by Janwillem van de Wetering (short stories; the cat in question, Tabriz, shows up throughout the series). Perfect End (Yellowthread Street Mystery # 7), by William Marshall. Zero at the Bone, by Mary Willis Walker Good luck with your picks!
Hey Olly- really enjoying all of the content, even as someone who is a bit of a wimp when it comes to horror! The only cat mystery that I've read and that I can recall is - The Cat Who Caught a Killer by L.T Shearer- if you can get over the fact that a cat talks (not a spoiler, happens on page one or two) then it's quite a good mystery story. Hope this helps!
@dqan7372 0 seconds ago "A Bias for Murder" by Sally Goldenbaum has a cat AND a quilt on the cover. There's a dog too. Otherwise, it sounds skippable. Under 200 pages though. It's the third in a series, but from the complaints it sounds like continuity wasn't a priority with the author/editor anyway. Lots of people searching Amazon for 'quilt murder' tonight.
Cat cover mysteries: I really don't think you wanted to ask for this advice in a video that I would see. Because... ...These are my experiences with US covers, but here are a couple of authors - Carole Nelson Douglas (Midnight Louie Mysteries), Rita Mae Brown & Sneaky Pie Brown (Mrs. Murphy Mysteries), L.T. Shearer (Conrad the Cat Detective), Miranda James (Cat in the Stacks series), Sofie Ryan (Second Chance Cat mysteries), Cate Conte (Cat Cafe Mysteries), Shirley Rousseau Murphy (Joe Grey series). These are easy enough to do a quick perusal of. However, if anthropomorphized cats or "talking cats" are a problem for you (but why would they be for the creator of garbAugust?), you should check for this kind of "tigger" (trigger 🙃) warning. It's most egregious in this subgenre.
Last year I read one of the later “The Cat Who” books but it was terrible. I own a second and I just don’t know if I can bring myself to reading the other one. I would recommend one of the Sofie Kelly books. It’s a series about a woman with two magical cats that help her solve mysteries. All the ones I have read were good.
If you read one towards the end of the Cat Who series you got ones not written by the author try the older ones, from everyone I have heard talk about them they hate the last few.
I'd avoid cozy for at least one of your options there - for ME, I could do 1 cozy in a challenge, but 2 might be pushing it. For the cat, I'd go with Touch Not the Cat, by Mary Stewart. She wrote a bunch of mystery thrillers from about the 50s through maybe into the 90s. She's best known for a group of novels on the Arthurian myths, which are good, but the bulk of her books have either espionage or supernatural overtones. She was big in her day, and was quite a good writer, but is pretty overlooked now. And there is a cat.
