Do you love cats?
Do you dream of cold winter days lying cozily on your chaise, a cup of hot cocoa beside you?
Do you love cozy mysteries?

If you answered yes to all of the above, then the new Alice Nestleton series by Lydia Adamson are the right stuff for you. In this, the first installment, we are introduced to a courageous sleuth by the name of Alice Nestleton. She is an off-off-Broadway actress, who is trying to move away from the classical Shakespeare plays and into the new avant-garde theatre. In the meantime, she supplements her vocation with cat-sitting around New York. As befitting a cat-lover, Alice has two cats: a Maine Coon named Bushy, and a frightened, domestic gray shorthair she rescued from the ASPCA by the name of Pancho.

It’s Christmas time and Alice is preparing for her annual cat-sitting job in a run-down horse-farm near the Hamptons, taking care of eight Himalayans for Harry and Jo Starobin; he a famous ex-cat judge and champion animal lover, she his faithful wife. When Harry fails to pick her up at the local train station as previously arranged, Alice is intrigued. She finds her own way to the farm via a taxi. Upon arrival, Alice finds things eerily normal, but it is only when she starts to get settled into her cottage that she finds Harry’s corpse hanging from the back of the door.

When a second murder happens to one of Harry’s friends who lived just down the road, Alice puts her powers of deduction to work. She will have to deal with a pestering detective, Starobin’s grieving widow and his young lover who surreptitiously disappears along with a calico barn cat and all her kittens. A connection? Maybe. Alice decides the case is worth investigating when Jo Starobin shows her a very large sum of money her husband left without explanation of how he got it. In order to solve the case, Alice will put her own life at risk, entering into high-stakes involving horse-racing and special cat genetics, geared toward producing miraculous mascots in the shape of calico cats.

It has the perfect mix of cat lore and sleuthing. I especially enjoyed the way the cats are very much at the center of the story, but they do not possess special powers. This leaves a good balance for the main character – the sleuth – to play her role naturally. Ms. Adamson obviously knows her craft very well, which involves not only the world of cats, but how to develop a good story thanks to what I sense is a background in the theatre industry.

This is a light but highly inventive mystery and I can tell it will be a successful series.

Lydia Adamson is a pseudonym for a noted mystery writer and cat lover living in New York City.

Look for further adventures of Alice in future installments; as well as the other series by Lydia Adamson, featuring veterinarian Deirdre Quinn Nightingale, and bird watcher Lucy Wayles. If you're an animal lover, you'll want to read them all!

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of A Cat in the Manger (Alice Nestleton Mystery)   from Amazon.Com!

Created Jan 10, 2004 at 3:12pm • Submit your own review...