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    No Cooperation from the Cat
    No Cooperation from the Cat
    No Cooperation from the Cat
    Ebook283 pages3 hours

    No Cooperation from the Cat

    By Marian Babson

    3/5

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    About this ebook

    The Agatha Award–winning author’s “charming heroines” return as a cookbook writer is entangled in a mysterious death (Kirkus Reviews).
     
    Trixie and Evangeline’s shared kitchen is unusually crowded as Trixie’s daughter, Martha, tests recipes for her upcoming cookbook, with help from her editor. But as they rush to meet their deadline, a few more people show up unexpectedly . . . including the husband of the cookbook’s original author, now mysteriously deceased, who Martha replaced.
     
    When one of these unwanted guests turns up dead, the truth will have to come out eventually—and Trixie and Evangeline are on the case, along with Cho-Cho-San, their beloved Japanese bobtail.
     
    “Lively . . . Fans of frothy, dialogue-heavy British cozies will be in heaven right up to the madcap climax.” —Publishers Weekly
     
    No Cooperation from the Cat is the 7th book in the Trixie Dolan & Evangeline Sinclair Mysteries, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateJan 7, 2020
    ISBN9781504059848
    No Cooperation from the Cat
    Author

    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

    3/5

    20 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      I 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.
    • 3/5
      I 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.
    • 3/5
      Chaos 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.
    • 2/5
      Cozy 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.
    • 2/5
      I 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.
    • 2/5
      Anytime 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.

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    No Cooperation from the Cat - Marian Babson

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