The Cat Who Said Cheese (The Cat Who... Series #18)

by Lilian Jackson Braun

Overview

During the Moose County Great Food Expo, Qwill and his crimesolving Siamese have plenty of delicious distractions. But after a mysterious death, they have to put aside the treats--and cook up a solution to the case! A Mystery Guild selection.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101214275
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/01/1997
Series:	Cat Who... Series , #18
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	27,137
File size:	590 KB

About the Author

The history of Lilian Jackson Braun is perhaps as exciting and mysterious as her novels.  Between 1966 and 1968, she published three novels to critical acclaim: The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern and The Cat Who Turned On and Off.  In 1966, The New York Times labeled Braun, “the new detective of the year.”  Then, for reasons unknown, the rising mystery author disappeared from the publishing scene.

It wasn’t until 1986 that the Berkley Publishing Group reintroduced Braun to the public with the publication of an original paperback, The Cat Who Saw Red.   Within two years,  Berkeley released four new novels in paperback and reprinted the three mysteries from the sixties.  G.P. Putnam’s Sons has since published seventeen Cat Who… novels.  Most recently being The Cat Who Went Up The Creek, The Cat Who Smelled Rat, The Cat Who Robbed The Bank, The Cat Who Saw Stars, The Cat Who Tailed a Thief, The Cat Who Blew the Whistle, The Cat Who Said Cheese, The Cat Who Came to Breakfast, The Cat Who Went Into The Closet, The Cat Who Wasn’t There, The Cat Who Moved The Mountain, The Cat Who Knew a Cardinal, The Cat Who Lived High, The Cat who Talked to Ghosts, The Cat Who Went Underground, The Cat Who Sniffed Glue, The Cat Who Saw Stars, and lastly, The Cat Who Sang For the Birds.

Even though Braun claims that her cats have never done anything extraordinary, her fictional cats, Koko and Yum Yum, solve crimes and delight fans in book after book.  Braun says the reason for her success is that “people are simply tired of all the blood.  I write what is called the classic mystery.”  She says that while “not all mystery fans like cats, all cat-fanciers seem to like mysteries.  That makes for a large audience, since 26% of all American households own 53.9 million cats between them.”

Braun was the “Good Living” editor of The Detroit Free Press for 29 years.  She is retired from journalism and is currently writing mysteries full-time, her latest Cat Who… novel is titled The Cat Who Brought Down The House.  She lives with two Siamese cats and her husband, Earl Bettinger, in North Carolina.

 

 

 

Hometown:

North Carolina

Date of Birth:

1916

Date of Death:

June 4, 2011

Place of Birth:

Massachusetts

Place of Death:

South Carolina

Education:

Graduated from high school at age 16

Table of Contents

Editorial Reviews

One of the best in the 19-title Cat Who . . . series (one of which is a short-story collection), this latest adventure finds newspaper columnist Jim Qwilleran more likable and his feline sleuthing partners, Siamese Yum Yum and Koko, more intuitive than ever. The small town of Pickax City is about to celebrate the Great Food Expo when a stranger moves into the community's dismal, but only, hotel. Both events engage even the reticent Qwill, as townsfolk get ready for restaurant openings and a pastry bake-off while trying to find out more about the mysterious woman. Qwill gets the jump on everyone when he runs into the woman at his summer cabin, but before he can learn much about her, a bomb explodes in her hotel room while she is out and kills one of the staff. When the woman then vanishes, Qwill suspects she is a fugitive fearing for her life. While the police investigate, attention is redirected toward the Food Expo, in which Qwill participates as both food judge and bachelor auction prize. But the hotel bombing and the mysterious woman are never far from his thoughts, nor from the inspired cogitations of Koko, who neatly untangles a web of eccentric characters and mistaken identities. Mystery Guild and Readers Digest Condensed Book selection; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club alternate. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Cat lovers purr at the mention of Braun's best-selling series (e.g., The Cat Who Blew the Whistle, Putnam, 1995), which features a pair of feline detectives. Here, the cats match whiskers with a murderer during a food festival.

Library Journal

The year-round residents of Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere, are enlivening the postsummer doldrums with plans for a fall Great Food Explo--and with gossip about a mystery woman registered at the Pickax City Hotel. Philanthropist/journalist/amateur detective Jim "Quill" Qwilleran, with his two Siamese gourmand/sleuth cats Koko and Yum Yum, becomes involved not only in the cheese-tasting part (20 different varieties) but also in solving a bombing at the hotel and subsequent murder of one of the witnesses. While the author retains familiar human characters and introduces a few new ones, Quill's famous felines continue to hold center stage. An ingenious plot, colorful characters, and delightful humor ("There are disadvantaged cats out there who don't know where their next mouse is coming from!" ) commend this eighteenth (and hopefully still counting) book in Braun's popular series of cat mysteries to literate ailurophiles, both old and new.

Barbara Duree