Cozy Mystery Review: A Night’s Tale | Sofie Kelly | Magical Cats Mystery #11

Sofie Kelly’s eleventh book in her Magical Cats series, A Night’s Tale, puts librarian Kathleen Paulson (and her two cats) back on the trail of a murderer in an effort to clear her friend’s name

About the Book

Spring is coming to Mayville Heights, and Kathleen’s brother, Ethan, has arrived in town with his band, The Flaming Gerbils. But not everything goes as scheduled when one of Ethan’s bandmates gets into a fight with a man interested in investing in the town. When the businessman’s body is later found, Ethan’s friend is implicated in the crime.

Kathleen wants to help her brother by solving the case, but she has no shortage of suspects from which to choose. Prior to his death, the investor was fighting like cats and dogs with lots of people. If this librarian wants more than a whisker’s chance of solving the case, she will need to rely on her trusty feline sidekicks, Owen and Hercules.

Review

I’ve popped in and out of this series and overall I think it’s a fun concept. The series centers around Kathleen Paulson, who is a librarian from Boston who now lives in Mayville Heights, Minnesota. Her cats, Owen and Hercules, are always the star of the show. The mysteries in this series vary for me in terms of how complex or central they are.

The book kicks off with Kathleen’s brother Ethan and his band, the Flaming Gerbils, coming to visit Mayville Heights. Ethan has a thing for Kathleen’s friend Maggie, and he’s happy to spend time with his sister too. The festivities come to a halt when the band’s lead guitarist, Derek, gets into a fight in a bar on a night out with the band. The fight is with businessman Lewis Wallace who is the subject of rumors around town (and who kicked a dog, prompting the fight).

When Wallace is found dead, there are plenty of possible suspects. Unfortunately the altercation leads the police to consider Derek as a top suspect. Until they learn that the peanut butter muffins that killed Wallace were supplied by Ethan. Kathleen is dating Detective Marcus Gordon, so she has an in with the case. She’s determined to help solve it and keep her brother and his bandmate’s names off the suspect list.

I don’t mind when cozy mysteries have a victim who is from out of town, as Wallace was in this case. This is necessary because if the series continues for awhile, the author can’t continue killing off and arresting all of the locals. Wallace is not a sympathetic figure in the book, so his murder isn’t overly upsetting for the reader.

I didn’t love the pacing of A Night’s Tale. Though I enjoy Kelly’s books, she has a tendency to not kick off her mysteries until well into the book. In this case, Wallace is murdered just past 30%. There was a lot of chatting and catching up with characters at the beginning. I think that will appeal to readers who are fans of the series and looking to catch up with everyone. For those new to the series, this isn’t the book to start with. The beginning just isn’t interesting if you aren’t already invested in these characters. Even though I’ve read several books from this series, I was kind of over the mindless chatter for the first third of the book.

This wasn’t one of my favorites from the Magical Cats series, though I think that long-time fans of the series will enjoy it. The cats aren’t central enough in the story to make this a stand out among cat-lover mysteries that flood the cozy mystery market. I did find the mystery interesting, and I always enjoy the library and book tie-ins with Kathleen as our main character. A cute but not memorable mystery with a slower pace and two cute, magical cats.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.