Cat Trick: A Magical Cats Mystery by Sofie Kelly

  How does anyone solve a mystery without the aid of magical cats?  With all the help librarian Kathleen Paulson’s cats give her, it’s a wonder that anyone is able to solve a mystery without them.

                Mayville Heights is preparing for a festival geared at bringing more tourists to the area.  The person they must impress is Mike Glazer, a former Mayville Heights resident.  Having left town years ago due to a family tragedy, one would think everyone would be happy to see Mike back.  The complete opposite is true.  No one can stand Mike.  He keeps going around town telling people how they are running their businesses wrong, and that they should change their ways.  Pretty much Mike is saying no one in town is good enough, which is something that does not go over well with the residents.  This is why it should not come as too much of a surprise that Mike is the one who turns up dead, found by Kathleen’s cat Hercules, of all people.

                Despite Hercules’s discovery of the body, Kathleen does her best to stay out of the investigation.  She is trying to form a romantic relationship with Detective Marcus Gordon, and she feels it would probably be best if she stayed out of his job.  Marcus asks her to all the time, after all.

                Of course, staying out of the investigation is easier said than done.  Harry Jr., son of Kathleen’s dear friend Harrison, asks Kathleen to look into the matter.  His sister’s friend is the only one in town upset over Mike’s death, and her distress is causing worry for Harrison.  He sees how much his daughter is working to help her friend, and he wants to do whatever he can to put both their minds at ease.  That means having his son ask Kathleen to investigate.

                With Harrison being so dear to her, Kathleen cannot imagine saying no to his request.  She agrees to look into the matter, but with one caveat: everything she finds must be told to Marcus.

                For the most part this system works out and things run pretty smoothly on both the investigation and the relationship fronts.  Then Marcus starts to not answer his phone.  With things coming to a head in the investigation, Kathleen feels the need to act whether she has spoken to Marcus or not.  When Marcus finds out what she has done, her relationship with him is threatened to the point that it looks like it could derail, possibly forever.

                In my opinion, Marcus reacted to Kathleen’s actions far too quickly.  Instead of finding out the reasons behind what she did, he leapt to the conclusion that Kathleen does not trust him to do his job.  That was not the case at all.  Kathleen was simply acting out of concern for others’ wellbeing.  It had nothing to do with her belief in Marcus’s ability to do his job.  This misunderstanding goes to show that there is a lot Marcus and Kathleen still need to learn about each other.  There seems to be a lot of trust issues on both sides, and that may take awhile to work through.  This situation does make me wonder, though, how Marcus would react if he ever finds out about Kathleen’s secret of her magical cats.  That is a big secret Kathleen is keeping from him.  Could keeping that type of secret mean their relationship will be over for good?