What do You think about Cat's Eyewitness (2006)?
What do a statue of the Virgin Mary crying blood tears, a monastery & murder have in common? Quite a bit in this installment in the Mrs. Murphy mystery series. In "Cat's Eyewitness", we visit the monastery at Mt Carmel where the statute of Blessed Virgin Mary begins to cry tears of blood. When a monk is found dead worshiping the image at first all seems normal, but when a local reporter also turns up dead then things get interesting. Brown actually does a better than normal job with trying to make things appear normal for a while in this book & even has the animals somewhat off guard as she does more story than mystery for a while in this book which works. Once of course the book turns into the usual murder mystery variety, then things pick up & a web of deceit & silence comes into play in typical fashion for this series. The animals have a slightly secondary role in solving this case, but it's the story of imagery & miracles that make this entry one of the better ones.
—Paul Lunger
Honestly, the fact that an author would list her cat as a co-writer kind of appalls me, as much as I love cats (Sneaky Pie is a cat, in case you didn’t know), so when I went for another car listening book, this time for the ride down to my parents’ in Virginia, I was surprised to pick this one up. But it’s set near where my parents live, so . . .Turns out that I really enjoyed it. The mystery isn’t that galling, although it’s well-written, but again, the characters are great. . . and I should have known I would love the pets in the book - Tucker the Corgi, Mrs. Murphy and Pester the cats. . . I love anything where animals talk - see the film Cats and Dogs, if you’re with me on this one - and these animals are great. In fact, the stories of the pets and the Harry, the protagonist’s friends, were more engaging than the mystery itself. Good stuff.
—Andi
