Kittens Can Kill

When Pru goes to check up on a kitten, she finds much more than she'd bargained for! The kitten is playing with a button beside the dead body of the man who was supposed to be its owner. This starts the tale - is is murder or natural causes. The man had three daughters and all seem to take sibling rivalry to the extreme, each seeming to blame the others for his untimely demise. Pru has little option but to investigate further and makes great use of her hidden talent and secret supporter to help her do so. Her talent is her ability to communicate telepathically with animals and her secret supporter, her Doctor Watson, is Wallis - her cat.

This is a great story set in small town America. The character - both animal and human - are superbly portrayed and there are lots of surprises as the story unfolds. This is another great story in the series and I highly recommend it!

Kittens Can Kill: A Pru Marlow Pet Noir By Clea Simon Poisoned Pen Press March 2015

Review by Cynthia Chow

When she arrived at David Canaday's Beuville mansion, all animal behaviorist Pru Marlowe wanted was to assess the kitten his daughter had hired her to check on. The last thing Pru wanted to discover was a tragedy in the making; Canaday’s dead body and the tiny kitten completely distraught, calling for his mother and wanting to play. Pru more than simply guesses the kitten’s intent, as ever since Pru nearly fatally self-destructed she has been able to hear the thoughts and telepathically speak to animals. They are still very much animals though, and even the skilled animal behaviorist often has difficulty at times interpreting the brain patterns of her clients.

Typical to Pru’s experiences, her human clients are the ones who prove to be the most challenging. David Canaday's three daughters are all in varying stages of grief, and none are willing to take on the kitten that some believe induced Canaday's fatal heart attack. In fact, the eldest daughter Judith, after having spent years care taking for her father, demands that the cat be put to death. Middle daughter Jackie had fled the small town to pursue a career in California as an actress, but as much as Pru can sympathize with her need to escape a past life she also distrusts Jackie's motivations. Canaday’s youngest daughter Jill may be the most troubling of them all, as not only does she receive the greatest share of their inheritance but she also pressures Pru into becoming something of a mentor demonstrating her ability to empathize with animals. Pru has spent years building barriers to guard her privacy and protect her secret abilities, and not even the growing relationship with Detective Jim Creighton has succeeded in breaching her protective walls.

Perhaps what makes this series so compelling is how grounded it feels in reality. Despite the fact that yes, Pru can "speak" to animals, they never break their own very non-human thought patterns and much of the difficulty occurs with Pru's inability to immediately interpret their communications. Only Wallis, her tabby roommate and who saved Pru from a self-destructive spiral, succeeds in speaking clearly and even then it is not always with the best – or humanistic - advice. Pru is challenged by her own troubled upbringing that has her relating to and sympathizing with each of the Canaday sisters even as she suspects then of having a hand in their father's death. Despite Pru prickliness, her brittle nature, and a less than pristine past, she is ultimately likable and admirable when she guards over the animals who are far nobler than humans. As she says, nature isn't pretty but humans only make it worse. The title comes, prophetically enough, from an animal control officer's ferret who provides the clue that Pru unfortunately interprets incorrectly. This is truly a novel that delves deeply into noir territory with family drama, the secrets of an unforgiving small town, and features a superbly strong heroine who is learning to lower her defenses and open herself up to a life filled with possibilities.

Pru hadn’t expected to walk in and find a dead man. No, she was here simply to get a brand new kitten settled in his new home. Finding the kitten next to the body, the very dead body of David Canaday playing with a button was not in the game plan for the day.

And so begins the newest addition to the Pru Marlowe Pet Noir series by Clea Simon. As with any mystery, I need to be very careful as to how much I reveal about the story. I believe you have the basic set up in the cover/story blurb.

I bounced around among the various suspects in this mystery. For about 15 minutes one person would be my solid pick, then a few chapters later.. no, it just has to be this person – until finally I just threw up my reading hands and settled in to let the story tell me who did it. And I really didn’t see it until the end – oh sure looking back I can see tons of clues scattered about – but isn’t that the level of a good mystery? The job of an excellent mystery is to keep me guessing until the last page, and Kittens Can Kill did a very good job at that.

Since this is the first Pru Marlowe novel I’ve read, (it certainly won’t be the last) I was fascinated with Pru’s abilities. I so often wish I knew what my pets really wanted instead of trying to guess. Pru has no magical abilities really, just for some reason she can hear animal’s thoughts. Considering how many animals there are in this world – that could be deafening.

I simply adored Wallis. Since one of my cats is almost 18 years old, and with a kitten in the house (now a terrible 2 year old) – I can so imagine my Charlie looking at me with the same distain that Wallis looked at Pru. Humans – do they understand nothing! :) Maybe we should pay more attention to what our pets are trying to tell us.

Overall, I very much enjoyed Kittens Can Kill. The story moved along at a steady pace, the suspects acted a little more guilty as time went on and when the guilty party is finally revealed – it all makes perfect sense. What I really respected is that the one “who did it” really is in the story the entire time – I cannot stand when an author tosses in someone totally never in the book, out of the blue as the killer. To me that is such an insult. Nope, we just have to figure out who it is.

I would recommend Clea Simon’s Kittens Can Kill to anyone who remotely enjoys a mystery. From diehard mystery fans to those just dabbling their toes in the genre. It’s a very good story and a satisfying mystery. I’d give it a 4 outta 5 on my rating scale. Go check it out for yourself.

*I received an e-ARC of Kittens Can Kill from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. That does not change what I think of this novel.*

Review: KITTENS CAN KILL by Clea Simon
(A Pru Marlowe Pet Noir)

Pru Marlowe, who lives in a small Berkshires town, hears intuitively and speaks to animals, domestic and wild. She gets by as an unofficial (I. E., not officially trained) animal behaviorist, including dog walking and squirrel control. Pru carries a lot of emotional baggage, which makes her all the more admirable as a protagonist--she admits her imperfections, and does what she can. In this episode, she is hired to supply food and necessities for a very young pedigree kitten, to a senior citizen. Better if she had demanded payment in advance; better yet if she had refused that job. But intrepid Pru is not a quitter, so she perseveres, despite increasing dangers.