MEOW IF IT’S MURDER by T.C. LoTempio

Publisher:    Berkley

Published:   December 2, 2014

ISBN:     978-0425270202

Genre:    Cozy Mystery

Format:  Print    

Obtained via:  Publisher

Reviewed by name and email address:  Gina Gina@loveromancesandmorereviews.com

FOUR HEARTS

Nora Charles…no, not Dashiell Hammett’s Nora Charles.  The Nora Charles who owns the Hot Bread sandwich shop in Cruz, California, the one who moved home for a quieter life—that one—is surprised when a hefty tuxedo cat shows up on her doorstep.  The handsome feline answers to the name Nick and quickly takes up residence with Nora.  She tries to find his human and quickly learns that that person is a private eye named of all things, Nick and he has disappeared under suspicious circumstances.  Oddly enough Nick—the PI Nick—was on the trail of a suspicious death.  Was Lola Granger killed or was it really the reported accident of her falling off her husband’s boat.  It’s not long before Nick—as in feline Nick—starts to show his real stuff—like a penchant for Scrabble and tagging along as Nora looks into a growing number of suspicious deaths.  Are Nick and Nora as able as their name sakes to find the killer before he finds them?  Or are they about to meet their own untimely demise?

T. C. LoTempio’s MEOW IF IT’S MURDER was a fun little cozy with its plays on words and fictional characters.  I can’t resist a book starring a cat and Nick is one of the most fun I’ve read.  He’s quite a character and I appreciate how LoTempio captures the variants of feline personalities.  Nothing Nick did was a surprise to me—cleverly done, but not a surprise because he is such a cat.  They really can do a lot of things LoTiempo had him doing…my own have been known to hit the snooze on my alarm clock so Nick’s escape from Nora’s car wasn’t a far stretch.

The sandwich shop with its various creative sandwiches was a fun venue to place parts of the mystery—I wouldn’t mind having a Hot Bread in my neighbourhood.  The secondary and supporting characters were nice additions and while I figured out what was going on fairly early I enjoyed the way LoTiempo told the story.

This is has the beginnings of a fun series and I’m looking forward to the next additional.

This is an objective review and an endorsement of this book.