Faux Paw: A Magical Cats Mystery by Sofie Kelly

          There are times where it feels really good to go back to a familiar series.  You don’t have to learn much about the past lives of the characters, because you already know it from reading the previous books.  Instead, you can concentrate on what is going on right now in the current story and enjoy what is happening in front of you.  When I started Faux Paw, I found it so nice to curl up with characters I knew.  That familiarity is probably why I read this book as fast as I did.                 

                Librarian Kathleen Paulson has not exactly found things to be easy at the library lately.  The library itself is fine.  It’s the art exhibit that’s being set up in the library that is the problem.  The curator of the exhibit, Margo Walsh, keeps changing what she wants the exhibit to look like.  Many installations have already been made to accommodate the artwork, but with Margo’s constant changes, it makes life at the library very chaotic.  This is why, for some, it may not come as too much of a surprise, that one day Kathleen finds Margo dead in the library.  Not only that, but one of the pieces of artwork has been stolen, which ironically is what Margo was worried about with this exhibit to begin with.

                Of course, after finding the body, Kathleen cannot just let Margo’s murder go and leave the investigating up to the police.  The problem is, there are other things going on in her life that are on her mind as well.  Her friend Roma is the biggest.  Roma has gotten very close to her professional hockey player boyfriend, Eddie.  There has been strong talk of marriage between them, and that is making Roma nervous.  Eddie has spoken with Roma about his desire for more children, but Roma, being so much older than Eddie, does not expect that to happen.  If Eddie really wants to have more children, Roma does not want to be the one who takes that possibility away from him.  This is why Roma is fighting the possibility of marriage so hard, no matter what her well-meaning friends, or Eddie, say.  Roma’s strong stance about getting married worries Kathleen, especially since there are other options than Roma having the child herself.  Still, even with Roma not willing to listen to what anyone has to say, Kathleen’s main concern is for Roma to be happy.  Whatever Roma decides, Kathleen will stand by her friend, no matter what.

                Something else Kathleen is dealing with is the suspicion that her boyfriend Marcus’s cat may be magical, just as her cats are.  Since Kathleen hasn’t told anyone about her cats’ magical abilities, there is not exactly anyone she can consult about the situation.  The only thing she can do is watch Marcus’s cat and wait for the solid proof that she needs.

                I really hope Marcus figures out his cat is magical, and that instead of keeping the fact to himself, he talks to Kathleen about it.  That way she won’t have to keep the secret about her cats so much to herself, and she will no longer have to come up with excuses for Marcus as to why certain things happen the way they do around her cats. 

                Seeing the magical abilities Marcus’s cat has adds to my curiosity about the feral cats that Kathleen and her friends care for.  Since the magical cats came from the same place as the feral cats, it makes me wonder if all the cats they care for are magical.  I certainly wouldn’t be surprised if they were.