Canapes for the Kitties

By: Marian Babson

Narrated by: Nadia May

Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's Summary

The outcry when Arthur Conan Doyle pushed Sherlock Holmes over the Reichenbach Falls and the dismay when Freeling shot Van der Valk are as nothing compared to the chaos that ensues when Lorinda Lucas tries to dispose of Miss Petunia and her siblings, Lily and Marigold. Not only does the lid blow off the fictional village of St. Waldemar Boniface, but the literary colony of Brimful Coffers is shaken to its foundations.

Old feuds are resurrected and new feuds are born as a town full of mystery writers begins to wonder if Life has imitated Art or vice versa. Even the cats, Had-I, But-Known, and Roscoe, become embroiled and add their share to the motives for murder and frayed nerves in the community.

©1997 Marian Babson (P)1998 Blackstone Audiobooks

Critic Reviews

"Nadia May composes a lighthearted narration of feline and human happenings. With enticing charm and a bit of satire, she voices the intrigue, fear, and frivolity by which characters collectively attempt to sniff out a killer." (AudioFile)

Wonderful!

Fasten your seatbelts (in the car and on the couch) and hang on for a hilarious ride through a newly-created mystery writer's colony in England. Most of the authors are obsessed with their pets, obsessed with the resident critics and obsessed with their characters (and absolutely novel ways to get rid of them!)

There's no sex, no terror and no violence here, unless you count the many ways Lorinda [our novelist heroine] devises to dispatch her hated main characters, a trio of unlovely English spinsters. But there is wonderfully sly humor and a cast of memorable characters like 'Macho' MaGee, a mousy academic who writes horribly dated American gangster novels and Plantagenet Sutton, a terminally snobbish wine critic who does scathing book reviews on the side. From the fireworks-laden Guy Fawkes to the regrettable demise of Boswell the Rat, this marvelous satire will keep you laughing out loud. I highly recommend it!

And thanks to the narration of the ever-wonderful Nadia May, I now know how to pronounce 'pince-nez'!

I enjoyed the ending

This was a tedious book. I've read some of Marian Babson's books in the past and I was looking for a cozy so I picked this up. Nothing happened during the first several hours of the book. A lot of it was written as copy for the book series written by the protaganist which she would like to end as she's tired of the sisters who star in her books. Listening to the "pages" of the books about the sisters makes it easy to see why she would like to end the series: Miss Petunia and her sisters are tiresome.

I kept thinking something was about to happen and then, nothing. Just more daily life in an out of the way English village. When people finally started it die (I won't tell you how far into the book this was, because if you read it you, like I, should keep thinking, "This is IT!") it's quite a relief. When you get to the last bit, and I got there because I really wanted to know what was going on, you'll find it delightful, not because it's finally over, but because it's really a nice story. I would probably have enjoyed it a great deal as a short story or a novella. If it had been a paper book I would have hauled out my very rusty speed reading skills -- why hurry to finish a book that you're reading for fun -- and skimmed until I realised that things had begun to happen then gone back a bit and read from there, but it wasn't and I didn't have any more credits for another week so I let the book plod along until (as the books says over and over) The End.

Clever and entertaining

As a long time Marian Babson fan I have never been disappointed. She has written not
only her own characters but whole chapters of books which they (mystery writers)
are writing. It is disappointing that so few of her books are in audio.

Just ghastly

I suppose it is true that you get what you pay for. I thought this sounded like it would be a good story, so I downloaded it. The narrator was not very good, but then had nothing to work with. Thank god it was “included” and I didn’t have to sacrifice a credit for it.

Good

This book was good, it's about a lot of author's and their pets , funny throughout the story, there is mystery, humor and craziness, got a little lost in some of the chapters , then understood it was about the charters that the authors were writing about . Overall it was very entertaining.

Innocuous, gently-paced fun.

I’m sure Audible recommended this to me because I love to break up gritty urban fantasy with a good Cozy. Even more so, if the cozy has sentient furry detectives. The kitties here aren’t sentient, and the villain was exactly who I predicted after the first incident. Neither of these makes the story hard to enjoy. I liked the various characters, who all had distinct personalities in the story and in the reader’s delivery. As such, I did not mind getting to know them a bit instead of diving straight into the plot.

well-read but sordid

didn't finish this book. glad I didnt pay for it. a little too blood thirsty in parts. some funny dialog and comedy. confusing at times switching back and forth from the book the main character is writing to her actual life events. not much moral fiber...I didn't actually like or admire the characters. who are the good guys? why do I want to give them my allegance?

Fun read

This was fun to listen to...
the characters were Interesting and full of spunk...
I am a cat lover and fall in love with the cats...

Very slow start

This started soooo slowly. The majority of the book was background. The voices weren’t always consistent. Macho and Freddie, in particular, often were mixed up. A couple of the voices were grating and I couldn’t wait until those characters left the scene. Overall, I’m glad I stuck with the book and will listen to the next one. If the glacial pace continues in the second book, though, I won’t continue to the third.

jumping around

I didn't like how it kept jumping around to the book she was writing to her surrounding
.