The very home to which Gustav has brought him once housed a research experiment that explains why so many of the neighborhood's Felidae look injured or ill. With the help of a battle-weary bruiser named Bluebeard, who refers to humans as can-openers, and a computer-skilled Brown Havana cat named Pascal, Francis painstakingly uncovers along with the murders the very sick history of his new, shall we say, fatherland. It's not the first victim, and certainly not the last, of an evidently mad killer who strikes only the amorous. Moving into a new neighborhood with his forlorn human master, Gustav, Francis soon stumbles across a corpse, a Felidae (the latin name for the entire wild and domesticated cat family) with its throat ripped out. Anyone who has seen the dark French movie "Baxter," about a dog who thinks, will have an idea of what to expect from Felidae.Ī savvy cat named Francis tells the story in the best Chandleresque tradition, leavened with wry observations on humankind. They are a subservient nation, commenting on their human companions and doing their best to live in a dangerous world. It's a spellbinding descent into a parallel world where cats coexist uneasily with oblivious homo sapiens. Akif Pirincci is not the first writer to feature cats as detectives, but Felidae (Villard Books, $19), selected as Germany's best crime novel in 1990, is not your average adorable feline cozy. THESE days in the realm of the mystery it's raining cats and dogs, but rather more cats than dogs.
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