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Lenny Aaron #1
Cat Catcher
Lenny Aaron is an ex-cop who now runs a business tracking down Melbourne's cats that have gone AWOL. Having left the police after her last investigation went horribly wrong, Lenny is gradually piecing her life back together with a little help from Zen and a fistful of analgesics.
The daughter of a media mogul hires Lenny's services to find a missing cat and uncover the identity of the author of a series of threatening letters. Before she know it, Lenny - with all her eccentricities, phobias and addictions - is back in the murder business. Without nine lives she must race against time as the adventure gets deadlier and the stakes get higher in this fast-paced game of cat and mouse.
A brilliantly diverse cast - the Japanese psychologist, the Russian barber, the British porn shop owner - populate this sharp debut novel which blends wit, fear and mystery.
The daughter of a media mogul hires Lenny's services to find a missing cat and uncover the identity of the author of a series of threatening letters. Before she know it, Lenny - with all her eccentricities, phobias and addictions - is back in the murder business. Without nine lives she must race against time as the adventure gets deadlier and the stakes get higher in this fast-paced game of cat and mouse.
A brilliantly diverse cast - the Japanese psychologist, the Russian barber, the British porn shop owner - populate this sharp debut novel which blends wit, fear and mystery.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1999
22 people want to read
About the author
Caroline Shaw
12 books1 followerCaroline Shaw was born in Yorkshire, England, and moved to Brisbane in Australia with her family as a child. She wrote her first novel, Cat Catcher while living in Kyoto, Japan.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 25, 2016
‘Cat Catcher’ is my first book by this author.
As I mentioned in my last review, the one for ‘Slingshot’ by Carsen Taite, I’d accidentally left ‘Cat Catcher’ at home one day and had to find something else to read. Which I mention because I then accidentally read another lesbian mystery book. Instead of doing the smart thing and reading something else, like, say, a nonfiction book.
I mention all that because there are similarities between the two situations in the two different books written roughly 13 years apart that will make writing a review more difficult than it should have been. In short – two young women who work in non-traditional areas of private investigation, with L first names, both ex-cops who left the police force after incidents that caused them injury, and when both found police work just too tough, and . . . um, I believe there were other similarities but I forget them now. Just recalled another similarity – both have addictions – Luca to gambling, Lenny to pain killers.
Characters
Helena ‘Lenny’ Aaron : Lenny is 27 and is an ex-cop. The story of why she is an ex-cop unfolds in little snippets throughout the book. Important as that story is to the development of Lenny’s character, it all boils down to: she was on a case to catch someone of some prominence. They couldn’t get him for the illegal crimes he committed (drugs? I forget now), so they were going to get him for tax fraud. They found evidence. People died. Lenny got viciously injured, and lost her nerve. And now she works as a cat detective, sees a shrink weekly (I rather dislike that psychologist, several reasons, but the most important one is one he even admitted – he just says things just to get rid of his patients), and is addicted to pain killers.
Plot/Mystery
Throughout the book, Lenny hunts down various missing cats. Some she finds dead, some alive. Oh, and that’s something I was going to mention – for a book about someone who hunts cats, there sure were a lot of dead cats in this book. Right. Plot/mystery.
A Kimberly Talbot contacts Lenny. Lenny ducks her twice, but eventually Kimberly forces herself inside Lenny’s office. I pause for a moment – Lenny sure is judgmental, throughout the book Lenny makes disparaging remarks about almost everyone she encounters – Kimberly has great legs, great breasts, and horrible bull-dog face, therefore she’s ugly.
Right. Kimberly wants her missing cat found. Oh, and her mother has received some horrible letters threatening to kill her (the mother). Lenny notes that she doesn’t do that kind of investigation, though she’ll look for the cat.
One thing leads to another, and Lenny does in fact do that kind of investigation – she ends up living in the Talbot home to look for the cat, and while there, investigate the threatening letters.
The investigation and mystery are all rather well done.
Romance
There’s something of a lovely romance in this book. Between Lenny and Cleo. They go from being bitchy towards each other, to trying to dump each other, to a growing attachment. Quite nice. *nods*. That relationship between Lenny and Cleo. I might or might not have mentioned this point yet, but Cleo is a Siamese kitty cat.
Oh, between Lenny and other humans? Well, she does have flirtations with a man (the next door porn shop owner – more that man wishing to be with Lenny, and Lenny wishing that man would leave her alone), and several women (both Vivien Talbot and Kimberly Talbot); but flirtations are all that occurs.
Overall
I do not know Australian noir. I’ve seen one or two films that may or may not be in that genre, and are from Australia, but otherwise I do not know Australia’s version of that noir genre. I say this because this book stresses that it is noir. It even has Noir written on the book’s spine.
I’ve a certain awareness of American noir. Having read several of the popular books of the genre, by such authors as Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man, The Maltese Falcon), Mickey Spillane, and Raymond Chandler. They involve grim private dicks. Who have addictions, mostly to drink and to women. And dames in specific type of dresses. And everyone carries guns all the time. And smoking, lots of smoking. And the lead character, who is a private dick, has a kind of grim depressing view of the world around him (yes, almost always him).
Well, if I was going to label this book a cozy mystery, of which I’ve read a fair number, or a noir, I’d probably lean towards noir. Even with a private dick who hunts cats for a living. Way too much violence, addiction, depressing thoughts, and the rest for this to be a cozy.
I do not wish to give a wrong impression here – I rather enjoyed the book. Lenny is somewhat hard to take, but overall an enjoyable experience had by me. Unfortunate that there are only two books in the series, and something like only 8 or so people have read them.
Pressed, I’d probably give the book a rating of roughly 4.35 to 4.45 stars.
April 22, 2016
As I mentioned in my last review, the one for ‘Slingshot’ by Carsen Taite, I’d accidentally left ‘Cat Catcher’ at home one day and had to find something else to read. Which I mention because I then accidentally read another lesbian mystery book. Instead of doing the smart thing and reading something else, like, say, a nonfiction book.
I mention all that because there are similarities between the two situations in the two different books written roughly 13 years apart that will make writing a review more difficult than it should have been. In short – two young women who work in non-traditional areas of private investigation, with L first names, both ex-cops who left the police force after incidents that caused them injury, and when both found police work just too tough, and . . . um, I believe there were other similarities but I forget them now. Just recalled another similarity – both have addictions – Luca to gambling, Lenny to pain killers.
Characters
Helena ‘Lenny’ Aaron : Lenny is 27 and is an ex-cop. The story of why she is an ex-cop unfolds in little snippets throughout the book. Important as that story is to the development of Lenny’s character, it all boils down to: she was on a case to catch someone of some prominence. They couldn’t get him for the illegal crimes he committed (drugs? I forget now), so they were going to get him for tax fraud. They found evidence. People died. Lenny got viciously injured, and lost her nerve. And now she works as a cat detective, sees a shrink weekly (I rather dislike that psychologist, several reasons, but the most important one is one he even admitted – he just says things just to get rid of his patients), and is addicted to pain killers.
Plot/Mystery
Throughout the book, Lenny hunts down various missing cats. Some she finds dead, some alive. Oh, and that’s something I was going to mention – for a book about someone who hunts cats, there sure were a lot of dead cats in this book. Right. Plot/mystery.
A Kimberly Talbot contacts Lenny. Lenny ducks her twice, but eventually Kimberly forces herself inside Lenny’s office. I pause for a moment – Lenny sure is judgmental, throughout the book Lenny makes disparaging remarks about almost everyone she encounters – Kimberly has great legs, great breasts, and horrible bull-dog face, therefore she’s ugly.
Right. Kimberly wants her missing cat found. Oh, and her mother has received some horrible letters threatening to kill her (the mother). Lenny notes that she doesn’t do that kind of investigation, though she’ll look for the cat.
One thing leads to another, and Lenny does in fact do that kind of investigation – she ends up living in the Talbot home to look for the cat, and while there, investigate the threatening letters.
The investigation and mystery are all rather well done.
Romance
There’s something of a lovely romance in this book. Between Lenny and Cleo. They go from being bitchy towards each other, to trying to dump each other, to a growing attachment. Quite nice. *nods*. That relationship between Lenny and Cleo. I might or might not have mentioned this point yet, but Cleo is a Siamese kitty cat.
Oh, between Lenny and other humans? Well, she does have flirtations with a man (the next door porn shop owner – more that man wishing to be with Lenny, and Lenny wishing that man would leave her alone), and several women (both Vivien Talbot and Kimberly Talbot); but flirtations are all that occurs.
Overall
I do not know Australian noir. I’ve seen one or two films that may or may not be in that genre, and are from Australia, but otherwise I do not know Australia’s version of that noir genre. I say this because this book stresses that it is noir. It even has Noir written on the book’s spine.
I’ve a certain awareness of American noir. Having read several of the popular books of the genre, by such authors as Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man, The Maltese Falcon), Mickey Spillane, and Raymond Chandler. They involve grim private dicks. Who have addictions, mostly to drink and to women. And dames in specific type of dresses. And everyone carries guns all the time. And smoking, lots of smoking. And the lead character, who is a private dick, has a kind of grim depressing view of the world around him (yes, almost always him).
Well, if I was going to label this book a cozy mystery, of which I’ve read a fair number, or a noir, I’d probably lean towards noir. Even with a private dick who hunts cats for a living. Way too much violence, addiction, depressing thoughts, and the rest for this to be a cozy.
I do not wish to give a wrong impression here – I rather enjoyed the book. Lenny is somewhat hard to take, but overall an enjoyable experience had by me. Unfortunate that there are only two books in the series, and something like only 8 or so people have read them.
Pressed, I’d probably give the book a rating of roughly 4.35 to 4.45 stars.
April 22, 2016
March 15, 2017
A book involving cats and a private detective who spends the majority of their time 'detecting' missing cats, set in Australia? With some vague underlying noir element? Read this book, I must. Also, write sentences oddly, channeling Yoda for some unexplained reason.
The book was better than I expected. And it is a good thing I noticed, or knew of this underlying noir theme, or I might have been confused by the amount of violence, and some of the characteristics displayed by the characters. My impressions of the book would likely have been different, lacking that prior to reading knowledge.
As a book involving a cat detective; actually let me reword that. I've actually read books involving actual cats as detectives, so, rewording required. As a book that involves a detective that primarily investigates missing cats, this book was a lot more violent than expected (I fear I'm overstating the violence element; anything that involves injury and/or death of cats seems more violent than I would otherwise expect from a cat book; plus there were injuries and death among those humans as well). As a noir book , there were a lot more cats being traced than I would expect.
Long and short, this was a better book than I expected.
The book was better than I expected. And it is a good thing I noticed, or knew of this underlying noir theme, or I might have been confused by the amount of violence, and some of the characteristics displayed by the characters. My impressions of the book would likely have been different, lacking that prior to reading knowledge.
As a book involving a cat detective; actually let me reword that. I've actually read books involving actual cats as detectives, so, rewording required. As a book that involves a detective that primarily investigates missing cats, this book was a lot more violent than expected (I fear I'm overstating the violence element; anything that involves injury and/or death of cats seems more violent than I would otherwise expect from a cat book; plus there were injuries and death among those humans as well). As a noir book , there were a lot more cats being traced than I would expect.
Long and short, this was a better book than I expected.
Read
June 19, 2020After a painful and horrifying run in with a sadistic heroin dealer—brilliantly recounted in a series of short flashbacks—Lenny Aaron resigns from the Melbourne police department. In a few words, she has lost her nerve. When the book begins she has been running a successful cat detective business. No danger there, right? But when she is hired to find a young socialite’s ragdoll cat, she finds out that her client’s mother—considered by some to be the most beautiful woman in Melbourne—has been receiving threatening letters. Will Lenny help find the letter writer and protect her mother? Lenny doesn’t want to, but well, there wouldn’t be a story unless she accepts, right?
First of all (or maybe second of all), this is a really good book. Shaw’s voice is confident—especially for a first novelist—and the story is well crafted, well-paced, exciting, and humorous. Lenny is as screwed-up a character as you will find, but she somehow gains our sympathy and our trust. She can be funny, as when she describes a giant poodle: “Trimmed into grotesque style with droopy white curls, it was a vicious breed, its long snout filled with big savage fangs. The Tammy Wynette of dogs.” But some of her humor is soon seen to be a reflex mechanism for her own shortcomings and obsessions, all of which she is aware of. Lenny is a neat freak and very germaphobic. Not only does she clean and disinfect her apartment and office thoroughly every few days, but she can’t endure being touched. She hates her grandmother, has an ambivalent relationship with her mother, and is dependent on over-the-counter pain medication, which she downs in massive doses.
As the title implies, there are a lot of cats in this book—and some of them come to a bad end. It is not a book to give to your cat-loving friends, as one unappreciative reviewer found out to her dismay. But despite Lenny’s voice and the occasional humor, Cat Catcher is a tough book. Some really bad things happen in it. But to grow out of her phobias, Lenny forces herself to deal with them and to investigate the case to the end. And looking more deeply into the book than is really necessary, Lenny’s relationship to her cat clients—the actual felines—parallels her personal growth.
If this book doesn’t make my Top 20 list, it is only because there is little, if any, information on lesbian society. Lenny is obviously attracted to women and not to men, but she nowhere mentions an ex-lover or even refers to herself as a lesbian. The thought of actually kissing anyone—and getting their mouth germs—is repugnant to her. So I will give this one about a 4.5 and dive headlong into the next and last volume in the series—not minding at all that someone has read it before me.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
First of all (or maybe second of all), this is a really good book. Shaw’s voice is confident—especially for a first novelist—and the story is well crafted, well-paced, exciting, and humorous. Lenny is as screwed-up a character as you will find, but she somehow gains our sympathy and our trust. She can be funny, as when she describes a giant poodle: “Trimmed into grotesque style with droopy white curls, it was a vicious breed, its long snout filled with big savage fangs. The Tammy Wynette of dogs.” But some of her humor is soon seen to be a reflex mechanism for her own shortcomings and obsessions, all of which she is aware of. Lenny is a neat freak and very germaphobic. Not only does she clean and disinfect her apartment and office thoroughly every few days, but she can’t endure being touched. She hates her grandmother, has an ambivalent relationship with her mother, and is dependent on over-the-counter pain medication, which she downs in massive doses.
As the title implies, there are a lot of cats in this book—and some of them come to a bad end. It is not a book to give to your cat-loving friends, as one unappreciative reviewer found out to her dismay. But despite Lenny’s voice and the occasional humor, Cat Catcher is a tough book. Some really bad things happen in it. But to grow out of her phobias, Lenny forces herself to deal with them and to investigate the case to the end. And looking more deeply into the book than is really necessary, Lenny’s relationship to her cat clients—the actual felines—parallels her personal growth.
If this book doesn’t make my Top 20 list, it is only because there is little, if any, information on lesbian society. Lenny is obviously attracted to women and not to men, but she nowhere mentions an ex-lover or even refers to herself as a lesbian. The thought of actually kissing anyone—and getting their mouth germs—is repugnant to her. So I will give this one about a 4.5 and dive headlong into the next and last volume in the series—not minding at all that someone has read it before me.
Note: This review is included in my book The Art of the Lesbian Mystery Novel, along with information on over 930 other lesbian mysteries by over 310 authors.
October 22, 2020
As far as language goes it's written well enough. But the protagonist criticises or dislikes everything their eyes land on. Most characters are either horrible people or horrible in appearance or both.
If you feel any sympathy for cats don't read this. There are too many upsetting scenes involving dead cats or an uncaring vet chatting happily while he euthanizes kittens. There are no redeeming characters, no upbeat moments. It is relentlessly grim with an unlikable, uncaring protagonist.
If you feel any sympathy for cats don't read this. There are too many upsetting scenes involving dead cats or an uncaring vet chatting happily while he euthanizes kittens. There are no redeeming characters, no upbeat moments. It is relentlessly grim with an unlikable, uncaring protagonist.
December 23, 2019
Ágætis krimmi. Persónusköpunin er heillandi og þá er sérstaklega aðalpersónan Lenny skemmtileg. Pilluhámandi kattaeinkaspæjari sem hraktist úr lögreglunni eftir að hafa verið misþyrmt hrottalega af glæpamanni sem verið var að eltast við. Sagan hverfist í raun meir um persónu Lennys en morðrannsóknin sem hún flækist í og sú er í raun nokkuð síðri.
March 31, 2011
too violent but well written, had to finish
December 25, 2015
A satisfying work of noir with a crisp ending.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews