Product Description

The events at the Great Food Explo in Moose County are overshadowed by the arrival of a distracting and mysterious woman, and Qwill and his Siamese sidekicks investigate a fatal explosion at the New Pickax Hotel. Reprint. PW. K.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #38368 in Books
• Published on: 1997-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.com Review
It's autumn in the little town of Pickax, Moose County, and the citizens are preparing for a new event: the Great Food Explo. A philanthropic creation of the Klingenschoen Foundation (a.k.a. Jack Qwilleran), the Explo was arranged to bring new restaurants, inns, and food specialty shops to the area. The great event is only a week away when a bomb goes off in the only hotel in town, killing a housekeeper. Luckily for Pickax, Qwilleran and his two sleuthing felines, Koko and Yum Yum, are on the case. Thrown into the melee are several new characters, including a mysterious woman, a gentle beekeeper, and the woman who wins a date with Qwilleran at a celebrity auction--although cheese seems to be the main character. Find out what's going on in Moose County and read about some delicious tidbits while you're at it! --Jhana Bach

From Publishers Weekly
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.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
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.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A walking dictionary?
I truly love all of The Cat Who series and I have them all. I have noticed that about halfway through the series they started to change. Polly is a walking dictionary (nobody really talks like that) and I think a very irritating person. I sure hope that Mr. Q. never decides to marry her. Also he has taken to wearing "jumpsuits" I shudder at the thought. The Mr. Q. that we all know and loved during the first half of the series seems to be doing things now that he would have scorned previously. In "The Cat Who Said Cheese" Iris Cobb's missing recipe book is one of the main subjects. I seem to remember that Verona admitted to have taken it in "The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts". All of this makes me wonder whether or not Ms. Jackson-Braun is really still writing her own books. In spite of all of this I really do love the series.

The Cats Take the Cheese
From beginning to end this book, as the title suggests, revolves around cheese. There is a new cheese and wine shop in Pickax, there is a cheese tasting at Qwilleran's home and the erstwhile journalist buys a nice old book about cheese that emits such a strong smell of Limburger that he has to bury it in the back yard. As if the cheese weren't enough liver & onions, mushrooms, honey and soup also play a part in this story and this is definitely not a book that you will want to read if you are on a diet.

There are several mysteries floating around in this book, none of which ever rise to the top and take on the role of being the major plot line. First, there is a mystery woman all dressed in black, then there is an explosion at the New Pickax Hotel which is followed by the murder of one of the town's merchants and then a fisherman is found stung to death by friendly bees. Despite all of this murder and mayhem however the most important mystery seems to involve Iris Cobb's missing cookbook. For those new to the series Iris Cobb was at various times Qwilleran's landlady, housekeeper and curator of the museum that he lived in until it burned to the ground. Iris was known far and wide for her excellent cooking and the handwritten cookbook where she kept her secret recipes. Shortly after Iris' death the cookbook went missing and now Qwilleran is hot on the trail. As normal, Koko and Yum Yum play major roles in this story and without their help Qwilleran would never have solved all of the mysteries. The interwoven mysteries in this book are built up sort of like a jigsaw puzzle and nothing makes sense until it all starts to fall into place.

This is not a book that I would recommend for someone who has not read any of the other books in the series because despite the several mysteries this book is mostly an update on the lives of the residents of Moose County. The mysteries themselves never really drew me into the story like some of the previous books in the series but the chronicles of Moose County always keep my attention. In short, this is not one of the stronger mysteries in this series but the antics of the cats and of the people of Moose County more than make up for the shallow mysteries. For that matter, the trials of Qwilleran as he attempts to cook a turkey are well worth the price of the book.

Funny characters and witty dialogues: a joy to read
I have read all the books of "The Cat who" series and this is the one that gives me the greatest enjoyment of all. Not only did I increase my knowledge of cheese (cheddar used to be the limit of my understanding of cheese variety, now feta and gruyere and brie are added to my dictionary), I also satisfied my curiosity over the identity of the thief who stole Iris Cobb's cookbook, a mystery brought forward from a previous book, in addition to the new mystery that relates a strange, frightened woman, an abusive husband, and a gullible young man with white hair.
All in all it's a delightful read.