HOMECOMING

In this third installment of a series, a Midwestern architect and a clever cat are pulled back into the detective game when a Hollywood movie—and a Hollywood murder—comes to town.

Architect and amateur sleuth Brody Norris is building his dream home in Dumont, Wisconsin, with his husband (and former uncle by marriage), Marson Miles. Brody is also catsitting for his friend Mary Questman while she’s out of town: a welcome chance to spend extra time with his favorite talking Abyssinian cat, Mister Puss. But the real excitement in Dumont is that the favorite local son, Hollywood actor Thad Manning, has returned to direct a film based on his childhood there. The citizens of Dumont are invited to serve as extras—and there’s even a role for a certain feline. As is typical in Dumont, nothing ever goes without a hitch, and the production soon suffers from the tragic death of the crew electrician. Brody’s friend Sheriff Thomas Simms suspects foul play, and it isn’t long before the architect and Mister Puss are pulled into the investigation. Thad and his production have more enemies than one might expect—he and his wife, the billionaire heiress Paige Yeats, have designs in Dumont beyond the movie—and, to make everything even more stressful, Brody’s mother, the combative lesbian Inez Norris, has come back to town. Craft writes in typically polished prose, illustrating his characters with precision and humor, as when Brody describes Inez: “I hadn’t seen her in three years, but even at a distance, I could see she hadn’t changed much…a hippie of sorts, older and wiser. She wore leotards with an East Indian tunic and a billowing mohair stole to ward off the chill of a late-October afternoon.” Despite the familiar touches, this latest volume is perhaps not quite as gripping or colorful as the previous entrants in the series—it takes its time getting going, and the mystery element is somewhat sidelined by other drama. (Perhaps part of the problem is that the novelty of a talking cat and Brody’s May-December marriage have lost a bit of their shine.) Even so, fans of Mister Puss will likely still enjoy this personality-filled and altogether pleasant sojourn in Dumont.

An engaging but somewhat placid mystery with a feline sleuth.