No Cooperation from the Cat: A Mystery
3/5
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About this ebook
Marian Babson brings back theater actresses Trixie and Evangeline in No Cooperation from the Cat, her latest cat-suffused cozy!
Trixie's daughter Martha has taken up residence in the kitchen she shares with her friend Evangeline. Martha is frantically testing last-minute recipes to meet the deadline for her cookbook, helped by Jocasta, her overworked editor. When a strange man bursts into their lives, it's revealed that Martha was not the first choice for the cookbook, and that the woman originally working on it died after eating something at a cooking demonstration. Unwanted guests descend on the already crowded and tense apartment, one of whom ends up dead. Cho-Cho-San, the lovely Japanese bobtail cat, joins in the fun as Trixie and Evangeline become entangled in another puzzling murder.
Babson delivers a delightfully witty mystery with a cast sure to induce laughs, including one cat that will steal readers' hearts.
Marian Babson
Marian Babson, born Ruth Stenstreem, is an American mystery writer. Her first published work was Cover-Up Story (1971), and she has written over forty-five mysteries. Babson served as secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association and was awarded the CWA Dagger in the Library in 1996.
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Reviews for No Cooperation from the Cat
17 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Anytime I get to the last 20 pages of a murder mystery with no progress or clues as to 'whodunit', I get concerned, and in this case the concern was a bit justified. If you like stories about a bunch of silly people running around hollering and annoying each other- think of the film Bringing Up Baby, or the TV series I Love Lucy- where you get a headache even though it is just a silent book, because you can hear the yelling and chaos in your mind as you read, than this book may be great for you.
The narrator, Trixie, and her roommate Evangeline, has apparently no spine to tell a bunch of complete strangers they are not permitted to take over her home to work on their projects and terrorize the household, just as she has no spine to tell her daughter Martha and Martha's friend Jocasta that they need to respect some basic boundaries while using Trixie's kitchen to test recipes. As a result of this character flaw and the caricatured awfulness of the 6 strangers who descend on their home, the majority of this book is a sort of noisy comedy, with a brief but never focal murder, and a distant and never investigated murder that also is just a bit of extraneous detail to the majority of story as it is presented. When we find out who killed both people, it is not because anyone has been asking questions, finding clues, or talking about the murders at all, but because the murder is nuts and the chaos eventually gets to him.
But, the cat is cute, and the best character in the novel, and at least Trixie and Evangeline are actresses and have an excuse for being over the top, even if the rest of the characters are not theater or film people and have no real excuse for seeming so phony. I also did manage to read this book roughly 'in order', since I already read the one before it in the series, which helped some of the story make more sense. Otherwise I'd have been confused as well as exhausted by this book, even as short as it thankfully is. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I used to love this author years ago! However, now there are too many characters in her books, too much going on, etc. I could not get into this book at all and only made it a few chapters in before I decided it was not worth my time.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I had this cozy on a shelf for quite a while and then decided to read it next because of the sweet picture of the cat on the cover. I confess that I read the reviews before starting the book. Most of them were quite negative for No Cooperation From the Cat by Marian Babson. I was surprised when I started to read it. I enjoyed the fussy and sometimes stupid chatter. I loved the character Cho-Cho-San. The author is an expert at capturing the ways that cats signal their displeasure or annoyance. The other main characters, Trixie, the narrator of the book, Martha her daughter were different from the usual main characters of cozies. They really did not spend a lot of their time or thoughts on the murder of Melisande. At the opening of the story, Martha is proud that she was chosen to work on a cookbook but finds out later that she was the second choice. From then on, Martha is in a snit. The first choice had been Melisande, the wife of Banquo. The autopsy report had already declared that Melisande died from an allergic reaction to nuts. How she got the nuts was the starting point of the mystery. Martha and Trixie are theatre people and so are all most of their friends. Jocasta was helping Martha with cooking and testing the recipes in the future cookbook. For some unfathomable reason she had a serious crush on Banquo. Banquo is pampered by three sisters of Banco’s who are constantly fawning over him. Also, there is character who reminded me of someone I know who kept popping over to see Cho-Cho. Cho-Cho was originally his but his wife was allergic to cats and wanted to kill Cho-cho.After getting to know Trixie and Martha, I do think I would like to read more of this series. I was disappointed by the ending, it seemed too sudden and I wasn’t prepared to find out who the murderer was. So this book kept my interest in the end but seemed to fizzle at the conclusion. I am wondering if the main characters are more active in trying to figure out the mystery in this book.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Chaos reigns in this fast-paced mystery. There is never a dull moment in the lives of Trixie and Evangeline as guests – both invited and uninvited – descend upon their happy abode. While Tirxie’s daughter Martha is testing recipes for a cookbook, tempers flare when it is revealed that Martha was not the first choice to author the cookbook. In fact, the first author ended up dead, done in by her own demonstration. It is not so much a case of the more, the merrier but rather the more, the deadlier. Still, there’s some raucous fun to be had between the mishaps. And while recipes are startlingly missing, there is a cat who wanders in and out of the tale.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I thought that this book was alright, but a little too mellow and slow moving for me. I didn't get all that into it until about 100 pages in and even then, it was still slow moving. Not the best book I've read but not the worst either.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Cozy murder mysteries with cute cats are always a don't-think-too-much kind of fun. But this time the don't-think-too-much part was, well, too much. Cute characters, not enough plot.