The Big Cat Nap by Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown, a review

The book: A little too many characters for my taste.

The author: Worth reading again, although start at the beginning of the series!

Review:

I happened to pick up a copy of The Big Cat Nap at my local library simply because my kidlets were dragging their feet checking out their library books and this book was on the shelf right next to the checkout desk where I was waiting. I love mysteries in general, so I figured it couldn't hurt to try a new one for a change. The front cover proudly proclaimed "THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY MRS. MURPHY MYSTERY," which implied to me that the author (pluralize that if you count the named cat as author number two) had to be at least somewhat decent to have stuck around for so long.

I was a bit put off when a list of characters greeted me upon opening the book. My general belief is that if an explanation is needed as to who everyone is, I'm not interested. Reading a list of characters does not really help me figure out how people relate to one another. That's where the actual writing comes into play. Regardless, I suppose it would be of some help to those who might actually care about such things going into the book.

The story itself seemed a bit confusing to me, mostly because it kept jumping back and forth from the perspective of the humans and that of the pets-who-do-not-consider-themselves-to-be-pets. I would have loved to see an entire mystery told from the standpoint of "The Really Important Characters," as the character list refers to the animals, but felt it somewhat distracting to jump back and forth between perspectives. Several animals, in my opinion, were mentioned for no reason other than to fill page space, although they might have played larger roles in the nineteen preceding books. Having not read any of them, I cannot say for sure.

The reading level was simple enough for me to not have to think much about what I was actually reading. Unfortunately, the cast of characters more than made up for that simplicity. The actual mystery itself was not much of one, in my opinion, but was entertaining enough to have justified the time it took to skim through the ending to make sure the Whodunits were who I thought they were. (Foreshadowing appears to be a favorite of the author. I think she would have been more subtle had she stood over me while I read the book and beat me over the head while screaming out Whodunits' names.) Regardless, it was not a waste of time, and I am considering reading more at some future date, should the desire for a quick, relatively uncomplicated mystery arise.

Ultimately, I'm torn between wanting to read more from Rita Mae Brown and not wanting to go through the hassle of trying to figure out the story from book one. I suspect the books would be much more enjoyable if read from start to finish, but I definitely would not recommend attempting to jump in to read this book without some sort of background. Too many characters, both human and otherwise, seemed to just be mentioned to give an "ah-ha!" moment to those who are already familiar with them.