Pour Jim Qwilleran, ancien chroniqueur criminel, un poste de rédacteur artistique est une véritable gageure étant donné qu'il ne connaît rien à la question. Très rapidement, il se rend compte que son véritable travail consiste à contrebalancer celui d'un féroce critique d'art, attaché au même journal et détesté de tout le monde. Pourtant la maison de celui-ci est un véritable musée, sa table celle d'un fin gourmet et l'homme lui-même est brillant et satirique. Il possède aussi un chat siamois aristocratique, Kao K'o Kung - Koko pour Qwilleran - qui apprécie les vieux maîtres et sait lire à l'envers les manchettes de journaux. Dans le monde apparemment paisible des beaux-arts, trois morts brutales se produisent et c'est grâce au flair de Koko... ( )

Not quite what I was expecting.

This had been recommended to me by my sister, who really enjoyed this series. I am a big fan of detective fiction, especially Sherlock Holmes and Ellery Queen, so this seemed to be right up my alley.

The plot is fairly simple, a writer for the arts section of a local newspaper gets caught up in a couple of murders. First the owner of a popular art gallery is killed, then the paper's art critic is murdered at his home. I will admit that I was unable to discover for myself who the murderer was until it was revealed.

The pace of the story seemed to drag in places, there is a lot of plot exposition and character development, rather than a lot of action. I did enjoy the clever involvement of the cat, Kao K'o Kung "Koko" in the discovery of some of the clues, leading to the eventual capture of the killer.

All in all, I would probably recommend this book to others. It's worth a few hours of your time to read. ( )

I actually started reading the series from the middle, so now that I've read the later half of the books, I decided to read the others. This is the first installment in the series, and it is where Qwilleran meets Koko. The story was a quick, enjoyable read. The crimes weren't the main focus of the books, but I already expected that so I wasn't disappointed. However, I know others had expected there to be more mystery within the books. ( )

I really wanted to like this book because I love cats and enjoy light, entertaining mysteries. However the story was a bit dull, the writing was not great and the mustache part just seemed silly to me. Perhaps I should give the next book in the series a chance, but I felt this one was really without content. ( )

I've enjoyed reading a few of Braun's cat mysteries before and was glad to find her first one. Both funny and mysterious, you get to know how Qwilleran meets and gets his first cat after the death of Koko's owner. ( )