The Author Who Didn’t Write the Ending

The Cat Who Lived High (Cat Who…)

Yeah, yeah — I’m reading “fluff” books because number one, I’m a sucker for books that have cats in them and two, that’s what ECT does to your brain — makes it hard to read literary fiction.

Actually, I’ve been re-reading The Cat Who… series because I have a bunch that I haven’t read yet and because of the ECT, couldn’t remember exactly how Qwill got Koko, etc.

If you aren’t familiar with this series, the first three volumes were written in the 60’s, and let me tell you — they were pretty risqué for their time. For example, a husky female metal sculptor named Butchy Bolton? Braun didn’t publish her fourth volume until the ’80s because: “The rising mystery author disappeared from the publishing scene for 18 years. The blame came from the fact that mystery novels were starting to focus on sex, violence, and foul language, and Braun’s light-hearted books were not welcome in this new territory.” (Wikipedia, Lillian Jackson Braun) Personally, I think this series is now written by ghost writers. I mean, the woman was born in 1913, which would make her like, 93 or 94 now and she’s still publishing! More power to her, I guess.

OK, on to this particular book. Qwilleran and his cats leave their country home “400 miles north of everywhere” to sublet an apartment “Down Below,” (the city) in order to save a historic building from being torn down by developers. A preservation committee, on which some old friends of his are members, are the ones who ask him to make the trip. Not only did the plot plod along, we never find out what actually happens to the building at the end of the story! Will it be restored? Will it be torn down and gentrified with the rest of the neighborhood? WTF? Come on, Lillian — you can do better than that!