Lilian Jackson Braun

Koko, who is busy toying with the squirrels as they search for black walnuts, Yum Yum, and James Qwilleran embark on their latest mystery when gold propectors, wildlife photographers, and pirates arrive at the Nutcracker Inn to take part in a game. Reprint.

The Cat Who Went Up the Creek

Sarah Sammis

The Cat Who Went Up the Creek is the twenty-fourth book in the Cat Who... series by Lilian Jackson Braun. The series started as a trio of books in the late 1960s and then reborn in the late 1980s has the time born inconsistencies that so many long-lived series. Even when just looking at The Cat Who Saw Red (1986) which restarted the series after an eighteen year hiatus, Koko and Yum Yum are still now ancient cats.. I can only assume that Qwilleran and his cats live in the same slow moving world as Kinsey Millhone who is still stuck in the 1980s despite being the lead character in a series that started in 1982.

I picked up the series with The Cat Who Saw Red and stayed loyal to the series until I went to college. The last one I read in order was The Cat Who Lived High (1990). As that was the eleventh in the series, a bucket load has happened since then.

Despite the big gap in the plot from my point of view, the book still follows the tried and true formula for this series. Qwill is still a writer. He still has two Siamese cats. He still lives "400 miles north of every where" in Moose County (state unnamed but possibly Michigan) and he still has a knack for finding himself in the middle of a mystery.

In The Cat Who Went Up the Creek, Qwill is called out to a bed and breakfast and rustic cabin resort that has "bad vibes." The manor house (now bed and breakfast) has a tower and Black Walnut staircase reminiscent of The Crying Child by Barbara Michaels (1973) The house and the bad vibes though are just the plot device to get Qwill and the cats to where they need to be. The remainder of the book is like a mash up of Silence is Golden by Penny Warner and Zombies of the Gene Pool by Sharyn Crumb.

The middle chapters drag a bit as the plot gets distracted with The Pirates of Penzance and the postcards from his friend Polly who is traveling abroad. There's also an odd chapter about moustache cups which was educational but not at all relevant to the mystery. After all that nonsense is done, the plot gets back on the rails and concludes after four tightly written chapters.

Although I found my concentration wandering in the middle (roughly pages 100-180), I enjoyed revisiting a series I haven't read in years. Although I probably won't actively seek out more in the series, I will read any new (to me) ones that cross my path in the future.

The Cat Who Went Up the Creek

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