THE CAT WHO READ 29 BOOKS

I have come to the end of the “Cat Who” series of mystery novels. There were 29 books in all, so it goes without saying that some books were better than others.

And as often happens in a series, I found that many installments at the beginning or middle were much better than what happens at the end. Sometimes a series simply runs out of steam, and I think that’s what happened here—though I also think something else may be going on. The last book, The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers was so unsatisfying—No! So much more than “unsatisfying,” it was downright disturbing! So disturbing I had to go online to see what other people were saying about this book. And nobody was saying anything good.

There is much speculation that the author, Lilian Jackson Braun, had not even written this book at all! In fact, there’s a theory that she had not written the last several books. To her credit, she was in her 80’s and 90’s while writing the last of these books, so that in itself is amazing, if in fact she was still writing. But the quality of the tales was obviously beginning to slip.

First of all, you have to understand that these books are what is called “cozy” mysteries. They usually take place in a small town full of quaint characters, and the protagonist is not a hard-boiled detective. There’s very little sex or violence, making them good mystery novels for older ladies who wish to be entertained without being offended. I never watched the show Murder She Wrote, but I imagine that would be a good example.

The shtick in the Cat Who books is that the main character, Qwilleran, has two cats, and one of them (Koko, not Yum Yum) is very, very smart (thus the 60 whiskers) and helps him solve crimes. So yes, it’s kind of silly, but very cute. You don’t read these books because you’re interested in crime mysteries, you read them because you’re interested in the cats and the characters.

But even having said that, a “mystery” novel should have a mystery, and in the last several books, it was far too easy to discover “Who Did It.” Even for me! And I’m notoriously bad at that. (Though I may have gotten better after reading so many “mysteries.”)

The harder thing to discover in the later books was exactly what the mystery was. Midway through the book, there would be an accidental death, and in the last chapter or two the idea was brought up that maybe it wasn’t an accident, and a potential suspect would be named. Then, in a sentence or two, we hear the result. And then we go back to the daily lives of the cats and the characters.

I like the cats and the characters so much that I’m almost surprised I’m complaining about the weak mysteries. For me, the mysteries were always only the skeleton upon which the “real” story was hung (the daily lives of the cats and characters) but you have to admit that without a skeleton, what you mostly have is a mushy mess.

But that’s not the worst of it! Here’s my real beef. In the last book—in fact, in only the last five chapters of the last book, TWO major life-changing events randomly happen to Qwilleran.

I have a problem with this randomness. These events come out of nowhere. The first one is described as “a bombshell” and it’s just that. Well, there might have been some indication that things could not go on like this indefinitely, but the writer’s way of solving the problem was to simply plant a bomb and let it go off. Not satisfying.

The second event (and as you can see, I’m being purposely vague here, as to not spoil anything, in case you still want to read the books) is one of those weird things that might happen, and the author tries to give some explanation, but it doesn’t work for me. Now, of course, in real life, random weird events may in fact happen, and we have to deal with them, but in books, we expect there to be a cohesive narrative.

Let’s put it this way: as for this second weird and terrible event, if it had happened somewhere in the middle of the series, we would say, “Well, you know, things like that CAN happen. I guess Qwill is just going to have to deal with it.” But when the writer finishes up the entire series with this sort of random BANG it doesn’t feel like part of any “storyline,” it feels more like a deliberate attempt to say “Screw it! There’s not going to be any more books, so I can just do whatever the heck I want!” (Notice how the author says “heck” instead of “hell,” because after all this is a “cozy,” so there’s not a whole lot of swearing.)

I say “not going to be any more books,” but that’s not entirely true. Rumor has it there was going to be another book, The Cat Who Smelled Smoke, but it was cancelled either because the author died… OR for another reason. The other rumor on the internet (the internet is a hotbed of rumors) is that due to poor reception of the 60 Whiskers book, the publisher cancelled the order for the next book.

I think the series lost a lot of fans in the last five chapters of The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers. I have two theories about what was going on as the series neared its end. One: Ms. Braun, bless her heart, was no longer the sharp tack she had once been. She was losing touch with her characters and her imaginary world. Or two: someone else was writing the books.

Either explanation could account for Qwill’s strange reaction to the two devastating events that take place in his life in the last five chapters of the last book. His reaction is, basically…nothing. He has no reaction. His life is dramatically changed, and we never hear any of his inner thoughts about it. At one point the author writes, “In the days that followed, Qwilleran, who had once trained for the stage, acted as if nothing had happened.” Well, that’s fine if that’s how he’s acting, but c’mon! We’ve been with this guy for 29 books. We’re not interested in how he’s acting, we want to know what’s really going on with him, how he actually feels about these momentous changes in his life.

It feels like the author has emotionally detached from her characters. In another instance, in one of the last books, a beloved peripheral character unexpectedly dies in a car crash, and there’s little to no reaction from either the author or the other characters. This person had a devoted boyfriend, who appeared in almost every book, but after his girlfriend dies, except for a brief mention that he’s “devastated,” we never see him or hear from him again. It’s like neither of them ever existed.

We read these books for the characters, we read these books for the soap opera of their lives, yet when the soap opera occurs, we’re deprived of their reactions. Not fair.

Okay, one more thing, then I’m done. All along, I’ve contended that the author has been “in love” with her main character, Qwilleran. He’s tall, well-built, intelligent, well-spoken, and has a magnificent mustache. I’ve mentioned before that if you were going to cast the role, there is no other choice but Tom Selleck. Who wouldn’t be in love with him?

I always found it amusing how the author projects her own feelings on to the townspeople. Sure, Qwill is all those things mentioned above, and in addition he’s the richest guy in the northeast central United States, with a healthy philanthropic tendency. He also writes a twice weekly column in the local newspaper, so he’s always in the public eye. He has every reason to be a local celebrity. People greet him enthusiastically in the streets, old ladies swoon when he talks to them in his “mellifluous” voice. It’s all so amusing, and so charming.

But in the third to last chapter of the last book, I can’t help feeling there’s some tongue in cheek in these two sentences: “In Pickax, Qwilleran’s annual move from barn to condo was as well known as the Fourth of July parade. The printers ran off a hundred announcements, and students addressed the envelopes.”

Really?? Did Ms. Braun write that? And if she did, did she realize how “fan-fictionesque” it sounds? Or did someone else step in to quietly make fun of Qwill’s reputation? This point goes in my column for “Somebody else was writing this book.”

Speaking of Fan Fiction, I have my own explanation for this last book, the only way I can make this all make sense. For whatever it’s worth, I believe you have to preface this last book with the following:

“Among James Qwilleran’s many devoted followers in Pickax City, one woman (we’ll call her Belinda Hunnicutt) let her imagination get away with her. She developed a rich fantasy in which she and the celebrated Mr. Q might somehow meet and fall in love. The more she thought about it, the more elaborate this fantasy grew, until at last she felt the need to write it all down. What you are about to read here in this book has no connection whatsoever to reality. It is merely the wild imaginings of a slightly unbalanced woman.”

This woman is NOT Lilian Jackson Braun. This woman is simply a figment of my own imagination, a way of helping me make sense of the sad and unsatisfying ending of what is otherwise a fun series of books.

I refuse to accept The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers as part of the Cat Who mythology. I suppose we shall never know what really happens to Qwilleran and his cats, Koko and Yum Yum. But for my money, they continue to live in the “eternal now,” quietly solving small town mysteries in their converted apple barn, 400 miles north of everywhere.