The residents of tiny Crozet, Virginia, thrive on gossip, especially in the post office, where Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen presides with her tiger cat, Mrs. Murphy. So when a belligerent Hell's Angel crashes Crozet, demanding to see his girlfriend, the leather-clad interloper quickly becomes the chief topic of conversation. Then the biker is found murdered, and everyone is baffled. Well, almost everyone...Mrs. Murphy and her friends, Welsh corgi Tee Tucker and overweight feline Pewter, haven't been slinking through alleys for nothing. But can they dig up the truth in time to save their humans from a ruthless killer? ( )

My goodness I’d forgotten how much fun this series is. Brown is obviously quite partial to the area and it’s history and does a wonderful job of evoking that environment without overdoing it. And yes, the little town of Crozet would be on the network news if it actually had that many murders over the years but the readers tend to overlook that factoid.

As for this particular installment, the whodunit takes a bit to unfold, the story flows nicely and doesn’t get bogged down but you still get a sense of live evolving as you read. The “wrinkle music” anecdote made me laugh out loud and is now a new term in my vocabulary . ( )

This book was an improvement over the last Mrs. Murphy novel. The danger and the crimes got personal again, as the lives of more than one Crozet resident are affected. There was also less of the animals waxing rhapsodic about human nature. The true identity of the missing Malibu wasn’t that much of a secret to me, but I enjoyed watching everyone else try to figure out what was going on. We get a little more about Harry’s personal life here, as Blair and Fair (a name combo that drives me insane) are both actively vying for her affections, but I’d like to see that storyline move a little faster. I’m curious to see Harry in a real relationship. This series was on life support, but this one has redeemed itself enough for me to continue reading. ( )

August 11, 1999
Pay Dirt
Rita Mae Brown

I love these books. It seems utterly ridiculous to have 3 animals act as the main characters, and a part of me keeps expecting to tire of the preposterous-ness of it all. Never happens, though. I love the threesome: Mrs. Murphy, the striped tiger cat, Tee Tucker, the Welsh Corgi, and Pewter, the fat gray cat who inevitably makes me think of George.

Someone named Wendy Wray does illustrations for the book, so every so often you’re treated to a charming charcoal (I guess) sketch of the animals doing various things: Mrs. Murphy riding in the truck with her paws up on the dash; or Pewter curled up in the canvas mail bin in the post office. Really nice renderings. Postmistress Harry is sometimes an almost marginal voice, more often viewed through the eyes of her animals who so desperately want to keep her out of danger.
In this book, a Hell’s Angel biker guy comes roaring into Crozet looking for some girl named Malibu, and winds up dead. Of course the animals have it figured out long before anyone else, and as usual, they’re continually frustrated by their inability to communicate their knowledge. “Malibu’s” real identity becomes clear later, and there’s a swindle and some missing bank money thrown in….Harry finally figures it out, much to the animals’ relief. ( )