School Library Journal Review
YAA lightweight mystery, the 13th in the series, guaranteed to entertain readers who want a quick read without much challenge. Alice Nestleton, a middle-aged, out-of-work actress, takes on a cat-sitting job to make ends meet and meets "almost famous" character actor, Joseph Vise, and his psychotic cat, Roberta. Nestleton ends up walking in on the murder of cat psychologist Wilma Tedescu. Eccentric suspects abound and Nestleton meets them all in her attempt to link the recent murder to one that occurred some 10 years earlier. Her current beau, Aaron Stoner, investigated the earlier unsolved crime and helps provide the background information and current questioning needed to solve the case. The story is set in New York City just prior to Christmas but otherwise there is little connection between the title and the story.Dottie Kraft, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
New York actress and cat-sitter Alice Nestleton is caught up in her 13th murder case (the first in hardcover) in this witty puzzler. As part of her new job for a character actor who is going out of town, she must take his occasionally destructive feline, Roberta, to its first session with Wilma Tedescu, an animal psychologist. Wilma ignores Alice and Roberta after buzzing them into her ratty brownstone, although Alice can hear the woman and see her, in profile, through her office door. Finally going in to remind the woman of her presence, Alice finds Wilma murdered, one bullet through her neck, an odd frilly apron tied around her waist and a tape of her voice running. The police immediately suspect Wilma's younger, foreign-born husband. But when Alice tells Aaron, her cop friend and lover, about the scene, he remembers an unsolved case he worked 10 years earlierin which the victim was shot with a single bullet and was wearing an apron. Aided by Aaron, by her niece Alison and Alison's psychiatrist husband, Alice pursues the cases in her desultory way, finally connecting the two killings and bringing the culprit to light. Pen-and-ink sketches of cats at the beginning of each chapter add charm to this slyly captivating story. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
In the 13th installment of this series, an overriding question for the bemused reader might well be why Alice Nestleton, an out- of-work actress/sometime cat-sitter, has carte blanche to investigate a Manhattan murder case--examining the crime scene and interrogating anyone with ties to the victim. Hired by veteran actor Joseph Vise to take his pet to cat-psychologist Wilma Tedescu, Alice, after a long session alone in the waiting room, finds the therapist shot to death in an inner office. Alice's on- off boyfriend Aaron Stoner, of the NYPD, sees striking similarities with the ten-year-old, unsolved murder of a never identified woman, and Alice is off and running. Wilma's estranged, much younger husband Igal is the prime suspect, and Alice pesters him at length, learning in the process about Wilma's sideline in photography. There are questions for all of the cat-patient owners Alice can find: jumped-up theater costumer Rita Falco; dour stand-up comic Mickey Repp; store owners Chris and Raymond Dunn; jewelry appraisers and designers Wyatt and Leslie Tanner. In the end it's the photography angle that pays off in Alice's elaborately baited trap--nailing a killer and solving an old mystery. One of the year's sillier plots, blithely narrated in a with- it style; punctuated by line drawings of encounters with eccentric but invariably lovable felines; and dominated by a heroine whose manic energies cry out for a steady job, or at least a p.i. license.
Library Journal Review
Fast, short paragraphs hasten the pace of Adamson's latest. Alice Nestleton, aspiring actress and sometime catsitter, discovers the body of a successful but stingy cat therapist. When her current beau, Aaron the cop, remarks on a similar modus operandi some ten years earlier, Alice cannot resist reverting to sleuthing mode. She careens around New York, interrogates likely cat owners and the victim's estranged younger husband, and finally identifies a murderer. Lightweight adventure, plucky heroine, standard city surrounds; a good choice. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
