Lending a Paw is the first in the Bookmobile Cat Mystery series by Laurie Cass. Set in a small Michigan town, local librarian Minnie Hamilton and her cat Eddie solve a mystery when they discover a dead body while out on their bookmobile route.

This is a nice first installment in a typical cozy mystery series. Minnie is quite likeable, as are her friends in town, though I wasn't a fan of the detectives who pick up the case as they seemed rather condescending. Eddie the cat is adorable! Minnie needed to pay attention to him more as he helped solve the crime but I don't think she quite figured that out yet.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Erin Bennett. She does a good job of bringing the characters to life. I especially enjoyed the extra nuance she gave to Eddie's "mrrrs" and "mrrows" to make it sound like he's responding to Minnie's questions. ( )

Character List


Chilson! I stared at the listing so long that my eyes dried out. Chilson was a small tourist town in northwest lower Michigan

Minnie Hamilton - 33 and given up any hope of my height reaching five feet and had become resigned to the fact that my curly black hair was never going to straighten, small houseboat I’d bought. I like to spend time in cemeteries.

Eddie My first cat. My first pet. His markings were black and white stripes with a chest and paws that probably would have been white if they’d been clean

Aunt Frances (Frances Pixley) is a sweetheart, All winter I lived with my aunt in her old and large house, but come May she good-humoredly kicked me out to make room for guests who paid a lot more than I did. only took boarders who were single and in need of a mate.
Boarders seventy-year-old Zofia dark-haired woman, twenty-two-year-old Harris seemed to have kitchen skills in abundance, sixty-five-year-old Leo, fifty-three-year-old Paulette pleasantly plump, tawny-haired woman, Dena was twenty-five thin, beautiful, and smart and Quincy mostly bald head had recently hit fifty.

Kristen friend Kristen’s restaurant, Three Seasons

Mr. Goodwin, white-haired, a regular library patron

Josh the only male on full-time staff under the age of fifty,

Holly Terpening was my best library friend happily married to Brian, loved to cook, had two small children, a dog, and straight brown hair, tried to get a loan from Stan and failed.

Tom owner of the bakery

Chad Engstrom. A big, bearded man
Trevor. Rose. Cara. Patrick. Emma. Ethan. HIS KIDS

Stan Larabee - dead, donated bookmobile
Caroline Grice dined together, most elegant and cultured widow in town

Kristen, owner and operator of the Three Seasons restaurant, friend,

Deputy Wolverson my age, maybe a little older. Not movie star handsome, but appealing. No beer gut, seemed intelligent. And no wedding band.

Stephen fiftyish man, Boss

Louisa and her husband, Ted, had owned some sort of manufacturing business downstate before they sold it and retired. Their houseboat

Gunnar Olson is a horrible excuse for a human being

Chris Ballou, the marina’s second-generation owner, manager, maintenance guy, and boat repair guy. early forties, whippet-thin body

Rafe Niswander, a mutual friend and neighbor from up the road,

Skeeter. and a boat owner

Mitchell Koyne was about my age, had various seasonal jobs

Detectives Devereaux and Inwood.

Thessie. Library intern

Larry new chef

DR Tucker Kleinow

Bill D’Arcy library patron

Audry. That was the name of the woman in the bookmobile, the one who’d been helping out at Maple View.




( )

Minnie Hamilton has been working in the job of her dreams, Assistant Library Director in the small resort town of Chilson, Michigan. Her latest proud achievement, in the face of her boss's cost-cutting preferences, is to get a bookmobile to service the areas no longer served by the now-closed branch libraries. She achieved this by getting a donation from uber-rich Stan Laraby, to purchase the bookmobile and fund the first year's operations. Stan has a reputation as a miser who gives money to no one, but he really values libraries (and, we later learn, other valuable public services), and not only provides the money, but works with her to plan the startup of services. And then, on her first day driving the vehicle, at her last stop on that day's route, she finds a dead body--Stan's. He's been shot.

Minnie isn't alone when she finds Stan's body; she has a formerly stray cat, Eddie, that decided to move in with her. She expects Eddie to stay home on her bookmobile days, as he does when she's at the main library, but on that momentous very first bookmobile day, he manages to stow away in her bag, and emerges too late for her to take him home. And when the library volunteer who was supposed to accompany her has to cancel due to serious illness in her family, Eddie becomes her paper-thin excuse for telling her boss, Stephen (Wrangle? I listened to the audioboook, so I'm not sure of the spelling), calls and directly asks if she's alone in the bookmobile, that no, she's not alone. (She's supposed to have a volunteer with her, as much for insurance reasons as having two people to service their stops.) It's Eddie, taking an unauthorized off-vehicle excursion, who first finds Stan's body. Eddie is also a big hit with the library users who greet the bookmobile at each of their stops, because she can't persuade him to stay curled up out of sight. This alarms Minnie, because Stephen is looking for any excuse to shut down the bookmobile and sell it, even if it's for pennies on the dollar.

Like a sensible person, at least at first, Minnie wants to leave the investigation of Stan's death to the police. Unfortunately, two things change this. One of Minnie's co-workers becomes a possible suspect, and when she does come across what might be relevant evidence, the detectives working on the case seem to be ignoring that evidence. This leads Minnie, with help, whether intentional or accidental, from Eddie, conducting her own investigation.

And while she does try to be careful, she eventually makes one mistake too many.

I have no experience with bookmobiles (I think I encountered one in real life just once), but I am a librarian, and Minnie comes across as a real librarian, as well as a likable, decent person, and, heaven help us, a pretty good fundraiser for the library (not just with Stan). The author clearly knows how libraries work and has decent idea of scheduling, the fine art of knowing what users will like when they don't know what to read next, and keeping clashing personalities on staff working fairly smoothly together.

We also get a good feel for Chilson as a community, and Minnie's friends and acquaintances there.

All in all, an enjoyable cozy mystery.

Recommended.

I bought this audiobook. ( )

[b:Lending a Paw|17707766|Lending a Paw (A Bookmobile Cat Mystery, #1)|Laurie Cass|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1381744896s/17707766.jpg|24757296]
Author: [a:Laurie Cass|7025913|Laurie Cass|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]
Publisher: Penguin/Random House
344 pages
Cozy Mystery

Yes, another cat cozy mystery! I'm seriously addicted! This time, I was pulled in by the mix of books and a cat. What's not to love?

Minerva Hamilton, known as Minnie, is a librarian in Chilson, Michigan. She lives on a houseboat with her rescue cat, Eddie. Minnie is excited about driving the library's new Bookmobile, but on the first day, she finds the body of a local businessman and philanthropist behind a rural farmhouse. In fact, the dead man gave the library the funds to purchase the Bookmobile. Minnie Eddie are on the case! Who killed the library's main benefactor? And, will they decide to take out Minnie too because she's asking questions?

I enjoyed this book! The main character is likeable, and the story wasn't the same old formula where the girl is smitten with a local cop investigating the murder. In fact, Minnie spent more time annoyed at the local police.

The one problem I had was this: Eddie went with Minnie inside the Bookmobile every Saturday. The author mentioned a list of items she took on the bookmobile for Eddie: food, water, blankets, toys....but never was it mentioned that Minnie brought a LITTERBOX. Now, Eddie can't have gone along on Bookmobile days and never had to relieve himself. The main character kept saying how concerned she was that her boss would find out that Eddie had been on the Bookmobile truck.....and she described bringing his supplies and cleaning up the cat hair afterwards. But where was Eddie going potty on these all day trips?? As a cat owner and booklover, the fact that she never mentioned stowing a cat box inside a cupboard or something when everything other cat supply brought for Eddie was outlined in detail.....well, it bugged me a bit. Either Eddie was wee-weeing in a corner somewhere.....or a little detail was left out. :) Not a huge glaring error.....but it did pull me out of the story several times when I had to wonder why the author listed all this Eddie gear, but never mentioned having to bring along cat litter, or a cat box, or having to clean up spilled litter etc after Bookmobile days. If she hadn't gone into detail about vacuuming up cat hair, or the other Eddie-related stuff she had to bring on the truck, I wouldn't have noticed the lack of kitty commode.

But, the question of Eddie's bathroom habits didn't ruin the story for me. This was a great, easy cozy read. I love reading these kitschy cozy mysteries in the wintertime when it's too cold to be outdoors most of the time. Quick, light reads. :)

My rating: 7/10
Ages 10 ( )

Minnie is practically living her dream. Not only is she a librarian, she gets to drive the new and expensive bookmobile, recently donated to the library by a wealthy businessman. She has also recently been adopted by a stray cat, Eddie. On the maiden voyage of the bookmobile, Eddie secretly stows onboard, dashes off at the last stop, and when Minnie finds him, he is sitting by a dead body. There is never a dull moment in this fast-paced cozy. The main characters are quite likable, especially Eddie, but you don’t have to love cats to enjoy the tale. This first book in the series has an entertaining mystery and does much more than just introduce the characters. ( )