Shock and Paw - Cat Cafe Mystery #8
by Cate Conte
Publisher: St. Martin's Paperbacks
Publication date: August 20, 2024
Print length: 320 pages
2 out of 5 star rating.
Thank you to NetGalley, Cate Conte, and St. Martin's Paperbacks for providing this advance readers copy of the book. Below is my honest review.
When you don't have a dead body until the 50% mark then it's not much of a mystery. Taking that long to set up the big event was tedious and not enjoyable. I had to stop myself from skipping around at first but later I did just that. I had lost interest and didn't care who-done-it. There wasn't much of the cafe or cats; JJ was an afterthought. In the first few chapters there were instances of repeating information a couple of times, it was like listening to an elderly relative tell the same story every family reunion. Maddie spent a lot of time going from one place to another and then to another, with nothing getting finished, it's exhausting. The Christmas events were a mess and I found it hard to believe that that many people could have done so little work. I didn't see the twist coming, all the people involved hadn't had much interaction. I will say that death by Christmas lights was an interesting way to kill off Donna.