Product Description

First in a series featuring Cat Caliban, a feisty senior who solves mysteries with help from the tenants in her building.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1892851 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 188 pages

From the Back Cover
After thirty-eight years of marriage, Cat Caliban is intent on starting a new life. She begins by buying her own apartment building, the Patagonia Arms, and working towards her PI license. Little does she know she'll be using her investigative skills sooner than she thinks. While showing one of her apartments to a prospective tenant, Cat finds a dead body. Apparently the vacancy listing wasn't entirely accurate.

Cat and her tenants go after the killer in the first of a series of adventures by DB Borton featuring Cat Caliban, a feisty grandmother with an edge.

About the Author
DB lives with two cats in a small Midwestern college town. She teaches writing, film and literature at a small liberal arts college.

Customer Reviews

A fun debut for Cat
First off, this is not the Stephanie Plum novel of the same name. This is the series debut of Cat Caliban, a Cincinnati grandmother who decides to liven up her widowhood by becoming a private eye. To assert her independence, Cat purchases a small apartment complex in a questionable neighborhood and, in the process of signing on two new tenants, stumbles upon a corpse.

The deceased is a homeless woman known only as Betty Bags, and while the authorities allow that it's odd for Betty to have been lured away from her home turf into Cat's vacant apartment to be stabbed with her own knife, they aren't all that motivated to give the matter their full attention. Cat is at once outraged by their callous dismissal of the woman's life and death and eager to get in some investigative practice, so she jumps right in. She enlists the aid of her three tenants, her cats, and a retarded youngster, and before long she is on the trail of Betty's killer.

Cat quickly learns that Betty was no ordinary bag lady. She was once a silent film actress, so Cat finds herself tracing Betty's fall from stardom to her final days as an activist for homeless rights. It seems all sorts of people could have wanted Betty dead. Was it the lawyer who carried a torch for the Betty he remembered as his high school sweetheart? The sheik who plied starlet Betty with extravagant gifts? The daughter Betty gave up for adoption but included in her will? The real estate mogul trying to rid his vacant properties of activist Betty and her squatter friends? Or somebody else entirely? To confuse matters even more, Betty's best friend winds up dead as well, and Cat must determine what secret she died to protect.

Cat's investigations are quite educational and entertaining, but I wish Cat didn't use such foul language all the time. It's not that I fear for my virgin ears, but Cat's constant cursing rings false, like Borton wasn't secure in Cat's uniqueness and felt a colorful vocabulary would add "character." Cat and her allies are an enjoyable crew, though, and I trust Borton will develop their true characters as the series unfolds.

(adapted from a "Skullduggery" review)

Witty, intriguing, and well-done
Fresh and funny Cat Caliban makes her debut in this mystery. Cat's new career plan is to become a private investigator; after all, her years as a wife, mother, and homemaker have given her plenty of experience solving mysteries and digging out information. While she studies her trade, she purchases a small apartment complex, which comes furnished with a corpse. Cat's quest to find the killer is marked with humor, poignancy, and consciousness-raising moments. Cat is a truly enjoyable heroine. At last a senior citizen detective who is shown as having plenty of sass and spunk! The supporting characters are also endearing. Borton's cast is loveable and well-developed. I look forward to more.

Fun, fun, fun!
I've read this one and the next two in the series! I have actually laughed out loud and can't wait to finish the fourth. In this first of the series, you get to know the characters in addition to a good story. They get better and better. . . You won't be disappointed.