The Cat's Meow: A Jimmy Flannery Mystery

Jimmy Flannery #5

by Robert Wright Campbell

It's having the graveyard at old St. Pat's Church sold and slated to become a gas station...and Father Mulrooney's recently deceased cat raising the old priest's hairs with blood-curdling howls from the grave...and signs of satan worship turning up on the sanctuary floor that get Democratic Precinct Captain Jimmy Flannery up off his duff in the 27th Ward and over to St. Pat's to take a look-see. To be telling the truth, Flannery doesn't consider any of these problems a matter of life and death...until he stumbles upon a corpse. Someone has killed poor old Father Mulrooney, and Flannery suspects the motive lies in the world of the living - at the bottom of land deals, buried secrets, and sudden death. So much for ghostly cats and devilish doings!

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

199 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

A screenwriter who turned to writing novels. Many of his earlier books were published as by R. Wright Campbell but later works were credited to Robert W. Campbell or simply Robert Campbell. He also published one book as F.G. Clinton. For more, see his obituary in the Los Angeles Times.

Reviews

[Hans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jimmy Flannery gets pulled into more shenanigans, starting from the death of a church cat...and soon enough, things become even more deadly. Jimmy is tenacious as always...even with a cold. As usual, there is a good b-plot and enough levity to balance out the deadly serious actions.

There is a fun through line with each character giving Jimmy advice on how to cure his cold.

There's this old saying about how long a common cold lasts; seven days if you treat it, a week if you don't. Give or take a day or two, it works out like that every time for me and nearly everybody I know, except for Whiffy Klepitch, who drinks a fifth of rock and rye the minute he feels a sniffle coming on and gets under the covers to sweat it out. He swears he ain't had a cold that lasts more than five minutes in forty years. Also Whiffy's drunk a lot.

[Robert James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another entertaining entry in the Jimmy Flannery series. Full of terrific characters and atmosphere. Flannery will remind the reader of Columbo. Always asking questions and always digging to solve the case.

[Canavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

✭✭✭½

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

An entertaining romp of a mystery. Chicago Irish, so vivid you can imagine it as a movie. Well, it was written by a screen writer.

[Sally Andrews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't think I was going to like this nearly as much as I did! It was a pleasant surprise! Now I'm going on the hunt for more books by Robert Campbell!

[Maryjane Nordgren · Rating 3 out of 5]

fun light read - interesting main character -

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Campbell's Jimmy Flannery mysteries are altogether unlike anything else in the mystery genre, or at least unlike the classic 1950's private eye working out of a small office waiting for the next voluptuous blonde or redhead to sashay in and spin his head. Fact is Flannery is not even a private eye. He's a sewer inspector and ward leader for the 27th ward in old machine run Chicago. Flannery's got a cat's curiousity and a cat's nine lives as well. Leroy Brown may have been meaner than a junkyard dog but no one is as relentless as Flannery not even a junkyard dog. Campbell's brilliance here is turning the whole classic mystery genre on its head and recreating it in the form of a black slapping insider who just can't let go of a bone.

The Cat's Meow is the fifth book in this series and It’s in some ways a minor mystery. No end-of-the-universe scenarios here. Rather, there’s an old priest and a dead cat and a old cemetery sold off to an oil company and Flannery poking around to try to find out who or what is spooking the old priest. Almost all the scenes are set in and around the church. This is a soft-boiled mystery and there’s little in the way of goriness or violence in it.

What makes this book and this series so interesting is the vernacular that Campbell gives Flannery so that the narration feels genuine. Flannery comes across as just another guy from the neighborhood putting in time with his friends and neighbors. You get the feeling reading these books that all the old world of Flannery’s childhood is dying off and its not entirely clear if the new world is going to be a better one in all respects.

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Jimmy Flannery, Chicago Democratic Party precinct captain and sewer inspector, mystery. In the Chicago Democratic Party tradition, Jimmy does favors for people he owes favors to. In this mystery, he's asked to stop an old Catholic Church's cemetary located in a rundown area from being turned into a gas station and the buried bodies relocated to another cementary. The area was sold by the Church to oil company.

The story is interwined with an old priest serving at the church for 40 years and who refuses to leave. Jimmy finds himself in the middle of dealing with two situations at the church: the priest's situation and the cemetary. Added twists involve the death of the priest's cat, his seeing the dead cat, possible Satanic rituals, and the priest's death.

[William Marantz · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for anyone interested in Barrack Obama's political genesis.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

solid story, good end

[Joan Schrock · Rating 3 out of 5]

An Irish Catholic mystery -light reading, nice story, About a Priest and his cat and a good friend who cared deeply about his church St. Patrick's.

[Sandra Holladay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read, Mr. Campbell has the lingo down, and there is no extraneous stuff to take you away from the story. Would definitely recommend to anyone wanting a quick, light read.

[Serena · Rating 3 out of 5]

My Rating System:
* couldn't finish, ** wouldn't recommend, *** would recommend, **** would read again, ***** have read again