Borrowed Crime: A Bookmobile Cat Mystery by Laurie Cass

            I’m catching up!  There are only three more books to go before I’ve finished the series.  Finished as to what is published so far, I mean.  You never know when another book for a series will suddenly show up.  

                Things are not looking good for the bookmobile, no matter how hard librarian Minnie Hamilton tries to save it.  The grant Minnie applied for to keep the bookmobile running was not received.  Then, to make matters worse, a bookmobile volunteer was killed.  Nothing seems to be going right.

                Fortunately, Roger Slade wasn’t on the bookmobile when he was killed.  He was just on the route, taking the place of his wife, Denise.  Roger and Minnie had only met that morning, so they did not know each other well.  Still, despite the short time together, Minnie found she liked the man, which seems to be the case with everyone she speaks to after his death.

                The same cannot be said for his wife, though.  Pretty much everyone has something bad to say about Denise.  A very antagonistic person, Denise does not hesitate to get people into trouble, no matter how innocent the “crime”.  Also, everything has to be done her way, alienating those she hasn’t outed for doing something wrong, as well.  That’s why when Denise’s car is tampered with, Minnie begins to suspect that all along Denise has been the real target of the killer.  Which means Roger may have been killed by mistake.

                I must admit, so many characters in this book drove me crazy, including Minnie herself.  The back and forth of Minnie with her boyfriend, Tucker, made me want to scream, “Figure it out already!”  One minute Minnie would say their relationship was almost over.  Then all of a sudden, they would be fine.  Not long later, the relationship would be over again.  It made me nuts, especially with such a sweet deputy sitting on the sidelines.  I’m really hoping this whole relationship situation gets figured out in the next book, because I don’t know how much more I can take.

                Despite this, there were good things that happened as well.  One is with Minnie’s Aunt Frances.  I’m happy to say, Aunt Frances has put her matchmaker hat away now that her boarders have left town.  That doesn’t mean all the matchmaking is done, though.  I say this because there is someone who seems to be a very sweet older gentleman who has just moved to town.

                Then, of course, there’s Eddie.  Good old Eddie.  Why in the world does Minnie think Eddie doesn’t understand what she is saying?  Having had countless conversations with cats throughout the years, cats definitely know what humans say to them.  This is especially true when they are in trouble.  Whether or not they choose to acknowledge the understanding, that is a different story.