What the Cat Saw by Carolyn Hart

Reviewed by Jeanne

Nela Farley is adrift. She’s lost her job as a journalist and her solider fiancé has been killed.  Since Bill’s death, she thinks she hears snatches of random thoughts from cats.  It started with Bill’s cat, so Nela isn’t sure if it’s her subconscious projections or if she’s just losing her mind.  She has no idea of what to do next, so when her flighty sister Chloe calls and asks Nela to fill in at her job and to cat sit for a deceased co-worker Nela jumps at the chance.  When she arrives at the apartment, Nela thinks she hears Jugs the cat mourning his late mistress—and a hint that what happened might not have been an accident:  Jugs was watching when Marion fell. When someone tries to ransack the apartment, Nela begins to wonder if the cat might not be right.

Once she starts work at the Haklo Foundation, Nela discovers that a number of disturbing incidents have occurred over the last few months, from an employee’s car being set on fire to the theft of a $250,000 necklace.  Nela really doesn’t want to become involved, but when the police seem to doubt her story of an intruder she decides she needs to start doing some investigating simply in the interest of self-preservation for herself and her sister.
Meanwhile, reporter Steve Flynn is just getting over a very painful divorce, but there’s something about Nela’s face that attracts him: she seems sad and alone. He resists, because he’s just been very badly burned by his previous relationship and he’s not anxious to risk his heart again.  Besides, Nela just seems too good to be true.

Hart is a long time mystery writer with several series to her credit. The first one I read was “Death on Demand,” the series about bookstore owner Annie Darling.  This was followed by the "Henrie O." series.  More recently, Hart has dipped a bit into the supernatural with a mystery series in which the detective is a ghost named Bailey Ruth.  The books are all what might be termed “cozies,” though Hart prefers the term “traditional mystery.”

I confess I haven’t kept up with the latest Carolyn Hart books.  The last ones I read seemed to lack that spark, a sense of fun, which kept the earlier books moving.  I couldn’t help but wonder if Hart herself was feeling a bit restless, leading to the new series.  I have mixed feelings about What the Cat Saw.  On the plus side, I liked the concept and I like the way it was executed.  Nela and Jugs don’t have long conversations. She gets flashes and fragments of what he’s thinking, but she’s left to figure things out on her own. Speaking strictly as a cat person, I would have liked to see Jugs used a bit more as a character. (I have to admit that the fabulous cover was one reason I decided to read this book.  It captures the essence of the premise perfectly.)  I also enjoyed the movie references; Nela and Chloe watched a lot of old movies with their grandmother so characters are often described as being like Jimmy Stewart in a certain movie or Van Johnson.   However, I have to say that the first part dragged a bit.  There are a lot of characters to meet in the Foundation but few of them seemed to have distinct personalities.  Also, Nela was somewhat detached from the other characters.  Her emotional relationships were mostly with people who were not present:  her sister and her late fiancé.  It’s not until half-way through the book that sparks begin to fly between the equally wary Nela and Steve, but then the story does pick up.  There is a bit of repetition in the book, the most annoying of which was a line about giving someone a deadline.  There was no evidence for any such deadline; it was the merest speculation.

The resolution was a surprise. Some of Hart’s misdirection didn’t work for me, but she still managed to fool me as to who was behind it all.  While I won’t be on the edge on my seat waiting for the next one, I will give it a try.  This has the potential to be a good series.