Friday, January 05, 2007

Mystery Bestsellers for January 05, 2007

Mystery BestsellersA list of the top ten mystery hardcover bestsellers for the week ending January 05, 2007 has been posted on the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books website.

The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers by Lilian Jackson BraunThe first new bestseller of the new year is The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers, the 29th installment in the long-running "The Cat Who ..." mystery series by Lilian Jackson Braun featuring James Qwilleran and his famous felines, Koko and Yum Yum. Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere, is in an uproar (good and bad) following vast inheritances from wealthy old families. Only "Cool Koko" knows what's happening . . . and he's not telling. Jim Qwilleran thinks it's because he has more whiskers than ordinary cats, but who's counting? Meanwhile . . . Koko meets a piano tuner. Polly goes to Paris. Qwill writes a play (an absurdist play titled The Cat Who Got Elected Dog Catcher). And there's a mysterious death from a bee sting . . .

Be sure to check out our new, updated Mystery Bestsellers aStore to purchase any of the bestselling mysteries featured on our website!

Visit the Hidden Staircase Mystery Books often where we provide readers and collectors of mysteries with the best and most current information about their favorite mystery authors, books, and series.

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1 comment:

  1. Below is my Amazon review of this book. It is not unique in that of the 135 reviews (at last count), very very few think this deserved publication and we all wonder what on earth has happened to Ms. Braun and who actually put this alleged book together.
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    I am sad and baffled by the real mystery that is "The Cat Who Had 60 Whiskers", and sadly agree with the majority of people who have reviewed this short story fragment being sold as a book.

    I have read each and every previous book in "The Cat" series, even the books that are only anthologized collections of previously published snippets, i.e. "Short and Tall Tales" and "The Private Life of a Cat Who..." Her previous tales taught me a few new cat tricks, and I had thought I knew them all. Nearly every single one of Ms Braun's previous books engaged my mind and made me yearn to find my way, somehow, to wherever Moose County might be located (or its Earthly counterparts), some 400 miles North/West/South/East of everywhere. I eagerly awaited this new "Cat Who Book", but - ye gods!

    190 pages ain't much of a book to begin with, not even for $15.09 (it lists for nearly $24), and 15 of those pages are blanks between chapters, a practice which isn't kept up throughout 20 chapters of this alleged book. And I didn't need my reading glasses for this one, because the print is large enough to pass for a Large-Type edition.

    Many of the more colorful characters of Pickax are missing this time around. Yum Yum is barely more than a mention, and even Koko is routine and without his usual cleverness. How many jumps from the rafters do we need in one book? The rapport between Koko and Yum Yum is absent. Koko's praises are sung quite a bit, as usual, but this time around, the cat is quite flat, and the few touches he adds to the storyline are by this time mechanical and cliched. But even Quill at times seems missing, too.

    Expected and beloved characters of the series never make an appearance in this book. Those few that do, even Andy Brodie, seem only to have been tossed in to try to move the book along to its conclusion, which must have happened off-camera, because I still can't figure out what happened to the character Alma Lee James, who is really never "there" in the book but seems to be a problem for Quill. What exactly is the situation as this mystery draws to its jarring end? This time, the reader is left with another mystery, including Jim Quilleran's blase attitude about a rather devastating, personal loss. Or two...

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