Cat Pay the Devil

By: Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

Nestled quietly on the Pacific Coast below San Francisco, Molena Point is a quaint hamlet - not the kind of place an escaped convict would choose for a hideout. But it just happens to be the home of a state's witness who put a thief named Cage Jones behind bars - until he broke out, that is.

Wily tomcat Joe Grey senses trouble is on the way, but he never expected a federal officer would be shot or that two locals would be brutally murdered. With danger closing in, the feline detective, his girlfriend Dulcie, and their tattercoat friend Kit must put paws and whiskers together to capture a very nasty criminal before he strikes again.

©2007 Shirley Rousseau Murphy (P)2007 BBC Audio

Joe Grey is back

Joe Grey, Dulcie, and Kit are joined by the three ferals to help rescue Dulcie's beloved Wilma after she is kidnapped. In addition, Joe is obssessed with the three murders of women in their homes. Is there a serial killer lose in Medina Point?

This book is about halfway in the series.

The voice of Joe isn't exactly what I imagined for a rough tough tomcat but I got use to it. The other voices are quite good and the reader does catch Joe's impatience and slight arrogance.

A welcome addition to Audible's collection, I hope the others in the series will soon join it.

Wonderful Story, Horrible Performance

Would you listen to Cat Pay the Devil again? Why?

I've listened to this book twice now because I enjoy the story and it's important part of the story arc of the Joe Grey mystery series.

How could the performance have been better?

I almost stopped listening to this book because the performance was so bad. William Dufris is a wonderful narrator, but his voices are awful. All of his female characters sounded insipid and his male characters sounded pompous. His portrayal of Joe Grey in particular almost made me put the book down. His Joe Grey removes all of the redeeming qualities and intricacies of the character; the voice he uses makes you want to run him over, vice chuckle over some his more cattish responses.

Great book/terrible narrator

If I’d not already listened to several of the novels in this series by the brilliant narrator Susan Boyce, I would not have bothered finishing this audiobook. I gagged my through this one (and the previous book as well) after looking ahead to see that Ms. Boyce returns to her role as official narrator of the Joe Grey series.
Mr. Dufris seems to have never met an actual woman in his entire life. His depiction of the female voices in this otherwise delightful story are the most awful, cringeworthy tropes. He manages to make even the strongest female characters in this book appear insipid, weak, and utterly flaky.
His depiction of Joe is equally awful, having turned a fantastic, irreverent character into a completely unlikable, pompous, disrespectful snob with an odd and inconsistent, mid-Atlantic accent. (Think, Thurston Howell from Gilligan’s Island.)
He shifts into Latinx accents each time a Latino or Latina character speaks, yet the author does not suggest that all the Latinx characters have any accent other than what one would expect from a person born and raised in the SF region of California. The character of Max is suddenly represented as a slow-drawling, dumb, cowboy type that sounds as though he’s from Texas or Tennessee.(Again, the inconsistencies are beyond grating.)
Mr. Dufris takes great liberties with the two books he’s narrated. His unsanctioned (I assume) embellishments of the characters, nearly ruins the story.
If you are a fan of the series, I feel that it is worth suffering through the awful narration of this book (and the previous book) lest you miss critical storyline details, but prepare for the characters you have grown to love to be ruined by this man.

Great story as usually.

I will be very happy when Susan returns as narrator.
The story just isn’t the story without her.

fantastic story but the narrator...umm

as per usual a great story but the narrator...umm.. didn't like the change at all. i know it's hard to change during any series we engage in. we get used to the same voice, pronunciations, the feel of each character. for me the way Joe Grey sounded in this book was awful. completely changed his feel, if that makes sense to anyone. other than that I say great book and great series for sure 😊.

Great magical story

Please, Please Please get a better narrator. He makes the surly tom cat sound like a spoiled
rich brat for the turn of 19th to 20th century in country estate. It
England. He can't pronounce the
villiage the story takes place in or
characters correct name's. The audiobooks charm may have stopped me from listening to theses magical , mysteries if I hadn't first read every one except
the last two. That I have both read & listened to. I would recommend this series of books to anyone & have. My thanks to Shirley Russo Murphy for sharing
her much treasured book with me & countless others. Be well
knowing you have entertained
so many.

Disappointed in Narration

I adore the Joe Grey mysteries; however this installment and the previous had a different narrator. William Dufris is horrible when it comes to this series, the mispronunciation of words was irritating, along with his character voices! I rushed through the book as quickly as I could, just to finish and move on so I could listen once again to Susan Boyce’s wonderful narration. The story was good, but the narrator was very disappointing! Please never use him again for this series!

Could not listen the narrator was NOT good

I am sure the story is wonderful as all the others
I could not listen to the narrator

Good story

I enjoyed the story; however, the narrator made the women and cats sound like whining children at times. I found that irritating.

Bring Back Susan Boyce!

Cat Pay the Devil is a great installment in the Joe Grey series . . . but I, like many other listeners, can hardly abide William Dufris as the narrator :( Oh my . . . While Susan Boyce does a bang up job on all the Joe Grey books, I can't say the say for this performance. BUT I wasn't willing to miss the story. Wilma is kidnapped by an escaped convict . . . and the cats have their work cut out for them to find her and set her free . . . Joe, Dulcie and Kit are joined by feral talking cats, Cotton, Willow and Coyote, who witnessed the kidnapping. Many years earlier Wilma, a retired prison officer knew the escaped convict, Cage Jones, and now he was back and he had her. Great story . . . bad narration.