The cat’s name is Conrad and he can talk.
I admit, I was caught off-guard when the dialogue started. Yes, there were some mentions about it on the first several paragraphs, but I thought it was a figure of speech, you know? I didn’t expect of a “They’re scientists, you said.” I was, at that time, thinking, “huh, Lulu is with someone? I thought she’s only with her— OH MY GOSH THE CAT TALKS.”
The main characters are the duo: Lulu, a retired Met detective living in a boathouse named “The Lark”, and her male calico cat: Conrad.
Apparently, other than talking, Conrad can see aura. Whether it’s true or not that cats can see aura. it’s still remain debatable. One thing for sure, orangutan choose not to speak because they don’t want to pay taxes.
Anyway.
The story genre is a murder mystery, and apparently the book is part of a series, preceded by “The Cat who Caught a Killer”. That said, this novel is closer to cozy murder mystery.
Setting-wise, I appreciate the writer’s details on explaining the house. I found it tricky to write down details, and I admire works by Umberto Eco on how, in “The Name of the Rose”, he wrote in great details the Italian abbey where the murders happened. In this case, L T Shearer would be my new favorite. The details were not as extensive and as elaborate as the late Sig. Eco, but I enjoy imagining the wooden doors, the chandeliers, and the broken French windows — that seemingly getting shattered and crashed many many times throughout the story. There was a point during reading that I was expecting the glazier (the person who fixing/installing glasses on windows) to march down the house and huff angrily, “AGAIN? IT BREAKS, AGAIN?”
Another thing that I noticed from this novel is the brand names scattered on the story. I might be wrong, and my knowledge and repertoire in literature and novels are quite limited, too, but I don’t think I ever read novels with such numbers of brand names being mentioned. I think the only time I noticed a brand name mentioned clearly was on “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson when the main character, Lisbeth Salander, purchased IKEA furnitures for her apartment (and why we don’t have that, IKEA? Hmm?) The most prominent one was Marks & Spencer (M&S) food, and I found it amusing because here in Indonesia and Malaysia, M&S has been more known as a fashion store than their food selections (a fact that seemingly M&S Malaysia trying to change.) Now, while I understand that it might be the writer’s preference, I honestly wondered if it was: 1. Out of habit, or trying to make it easier to the readers to imagine and visualize a scene by putting something “familiar” (although I have to be honest: I’m not familiar with M&S Nibbles and I had to Google it), or 2. Brand placements. Nothing wrong with brand placements, though. I mean, Korean dramas and Indonesian sinetrons can be ten times worse than that. It’s just interesting to see from a novel.
Another particular thing that I noticed on this novel is the mention of food. I commented about it to my husband, “… it feels like Enid Blyton wrote a murder mystery.” I wonder if this is a British thing; to see comfort, familiarity, and the world may crash and burn as we speak, but we have a cup of nice hot tea alliswell.jpg-mentality. This also transcends to TV series. I remember I watched this movie, an adaptation of Sherlock Holmes “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, with Richard Roxburgh as Sherlock Holmes, Ian Hart as Dr. John Watson, and Richard E. Grant as Jack Stapleton. Other than Richard E. Grant’s mad talent and ability to play Jack Stapleton that made me wanted to throw a pillow to the TV screen while screaming, “CREEP!”, there was a really simple scene that burned its way into my brain: A character poured a hot tea into a teacup and steam coming up, showing how warm the tea must be in the cold crisp morning. That got stuck with me. I remember I thought, “it must be a really nice warm breakfast.” The novel “The Cat who Solved Three Murders” is not an exception either. Even a simple act of cooking a scrambled egg in a microwave (I know, I know. I was surprised, too. Don’t let my husband heard about it — he takes pride in cooking his scrambled egg just like how Gordon Ramsay taught it on Youtube) was so endearing and calming.
Story-wise, I found it amusing that the writer managed to capture such good grasp of police’s bureaucracy. The story mentioned about “bag holder”, decision log, and many things that I just learned on how policework actually works. One of my teammates used to be a police officer in the UK, and I wonder if I could ask him questions on how he used to work and the administrative tasks. Also, I wonder how investigations work in the UK. When Lulu and a detective named Tracey visited an insurance office and mentioned that they need to look every floor of the office and crosscheck the personnels, the process seemed… Smooth. I spent a good chunk of my young adult life watching “CSI: Las Vegas” series, and a question mark immediately lighten up in my brain when I read the part when the secretary, Gary, allowed Lulu and Tracey to explore the whole building: “Wait. That easy? There is no need to ask for a warrant?” Then again, two countries, two judiciary systems.
For characters, I enjoyed how humane the characters are. Including Conrad. I had this gnawing belief that the writer seemed wanting to put more women characters in the spotlight, which, heck yea. That said, my favorite part is whenever the characters fell at ease when Conrad was around. I feel that would work — and definitely worked — in the real life, you know? Having a familiar animal such as cats helps easing the tensions and stress, and it was quite evident in the novel that Conrad exploited it to the max, hahah.
Now. Let’s just rip the band-aid out. Again, this might be coming from me and my “CSI”-series and how I am used with your regular channel of murder mysteries and thriller. When we finally found out who the murderer is, it felt… anticlimatic. At least for me. Then again, perhaps the unmasking of the murderer is not the most laser-focus point on the story, so please take this with a grain of salt. I’m not going to say the whole thing is predictable, but — again, me and my “CSI”-thingy — considering the circumstances and the knowledge the characters had, the culprit should have been quite obvious since the middle of the story; and I’ve been wondering why they didn’t bring the person for interviews sooner. Then again, it might be due to a different judiciary process. Also, somehow, when the murderer finally confessed and spewed some insults and expletives to the police when they were interrogated, a lot of the dialogue reminded me of angry users on chat or emails. I think that’s part of the charm, no? The whole plot was light, so to have everything stays in the same level is a great task to tackle, and this is kudos to the writer.
The closing itself was quite good — but this, honestly, for me, came after I reread it multiple times to understand Lulu and Tracey’s motivations. That said, I want to give credits to the writer. Closure is hard. Let alone novels, closing a freaking blog post is HARD. You want to sound witty, piquing your readers’ interest, but in the end, you end up with a picture gallery (I’m guilty of that.) In this novel, I sensed the writer’s tendency to close the chapters with Conrad meowed and Lulu mentioned something like, “he (Conrad) is a so-and-so cat.” This is also evident on the last few paragraphs on the novel. Someone remarked something, and someone else replied with a quip. Nothing is wrong with it, but I wondered if we can have some kind of excitement building up for the next series. Something like, turning on the boathouse engine for the next trip — to symbolize Lulu and Conrad’s journey.
To close the review (ha!), if you enjoy hair-raising thriller murder mystery story, this novel might be not for you. This does not mean the novel is bad. Far from it. This novel might not be your cup of tea, but then again, some folks can be really open to try new type of teas, right?
Also, speaking about hair-raising, kudos to L T Shearer for writing the scene where Lulu and Conrad looked out their room after hearing something in the house in a pitch-dark night at 2 AM. It was so vivid, I could imagine I was there.
If you enjoy cozy murder mysteries, though, and usually read it while curling on your bed or your sofa with a nice warm tea or chocolate in a mug, you would find this novel has its charm.
