Book 75, 2021

Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter by Blaize Clement

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I stayed up late last night to finish reading Curiosity Killed the Cat Sitter, which is the first "Dixie Hemingway" mystery by author Blaize Clement. Story is told in first-person pov by the titular character.

After losing her husband and daughter in a car accident, Dixie has retired from her job as a deputy and now has a thriving pet-sitting business. She gets more than a dirty litterbox, however, when visiting a client's home leads to her finding a dead man facedown in the cat's water bowl. Dixie dutifully calls the police and vows to stay out of it, but when she's unable to contact her client, she begins to think a similar fate has befallen Marilee. Dixie is soon involved up to her neck, first when she discovers the neighbors' son playing piano at a gay bar, and second when a thug begins stalking her. Now that Dixie is in danger, the handsome detective working the case may not be able to protect her. It's a good thing that Dixie still knows how to handle a gun.

I've read other books in this series and enjoyed them, so it was interesting to read the first book and get some additional perspective and background. Dixie is tough, even though she has her moments where the cracks in her walls appear. All characters were very well portrayed, even the villains. The plot moved at a steady pace, and it included plenty of Dixie at work as well as some much needed downtime spent with her brother and his partner. There were some interesting twists, and the resolution did the story justice.

Favorite lines:
♦ Leave a dog alone for very long and it'll start going a little nuts. Cats, on the other hand, try to give you the impression they didn't even know you were gone. "Oh, you were out?" they'll say. "I didn't notice." Then they'll raise their tails to show you their little puckered anuses and walk away.
♦ "I told him, 'You can start in the middle and kiss your way thirty-six inches to the right, and then you can go back to the middle and kiss your way thirty-six inches to the left. You can just kiss my big fat ass.'"
♦ I don't know why people say they're being "catty" when they make unkind remarks about other people. Cats aren't like that.
♦ Women fling themselves at Michael the way mating lovebugs splat themselves on car windshields in the spring. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them bear razor scars on their wrists at the futility of it, because he and Paco have been together for over twelve years and counting.
♦ Perfume companies ought to bottle the smell of crisp bacon. Forget pheromones. I'll bet a woman with a little spot of bacon grease behind her ears would attract every male within a five-mile radius.
I've said this many a time, Dixie!
♦ "Being young is easy, you know, anybody can do that, but it takes guts to be old."
♦ If I ever commit a major crime, I'm going to head straight for the nearest big hospital. You could spend an entire day in a waiting area pretending to be a relative keeping vigil on a loved one, every day moving to a different area. You'd have plenty of bathrooms, you could sleep on the couches, and if you had money to put in food-vending machines, you could hide out indefinitely.
Genius!
♦ "Stone crab?" // "Absolutely." // "Fries?" // "Extra crispy." // "Salad?" // "Please, with blue cheese dressing." // "Caesar or house?" // "Caesar." // "What kind of dressing?" // "Blue cheese." There must be a law that says waitpersons must ignore you if you tell them what salad dressing you want before they specifically ask you.
♦ "That's what I live for, Dixie, to make a cat happy." // I batted away a floating cat hair and said, "Okay, that was snide, because I really do live to make a cat happy."
♦ "Bull Banks wouldn't be following you just because you're a hot babe, somebody's paying him." // "You think I'm a hot babe?" // He gave me an exaggerated leer. "Hon, if I was straight, I'd jump your bones in a minute." // "Do you think I should be scared?" // "You think I'm in danger of becoming straight?"

It's odd to read a book that makes you laugh when it shouldn't be funny at all. Dixie is a very somber, guarded person, and the crimes that she got caught up in were brutal and deadly. But, yeah. I do love her wry wit, and I loved the story. Five stars!

Book 76, 2021 (Hugs and kisses from Cal Leandros, shithead.)

Blackout by Rob Thurman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



I spent my day off knocking back Blackout, which is book # 6 in the Cal Leandros series by Rob Thurman. I'd been a tad reluctant to read it, because I knew it involved Cal losing his memory, and I have to say, ye olde "amnesia trope" is one I do not care for. At all.

When Cal wakes up alone on a beach, surrounded by the dead bodies of monsters, he has no idea where he is nor who he is. From the evidence surrounding him (and the weapons he's carrying), he can tell he's a monster hunter, but beyond that...nada. Cal hoofs it into town and does his best to assimilate as he tries to remember. Four days later, a man claiming to be his brother comes for him and takes Cal back to NYC. There, Cal learns that he and his brother are both monster hunters, which suits him just fine. Monsters are evil and need to be killed, right? In the meantime, some of the monsters he encounters seem confused by him, leading Cal to believe that people are keeping secrets from him. What Cal doesn't yet realize is that the biggest secret is his own monster heritage, and that it may be the only thing that can save the city when a would-be goddess arrives to drain the local Wolves and vampires.

As mentioned, I really don't like amnesia as a plot-device. It's far too soap-opera-y. However, the author made it work in this book. We get to see what Cal might have been like, had he been born fully human. Worse, Niko gets to see what Cal would have been like, and it leads to him making some less-than-honorable decisions where Cal is concerned. While Nik is desperate to have his brother back, he's also reluctant to burst this new Cal's happy little bubble. Of course, Niko's machinations are no match for Cal's Auphe half, which begins to reassert itself as time goes on. The story did have some humor in it, from Cal getting drunk (which he never would have done in his right mind) and singing with Robin in a bar, to him dragging Niko next door to the bar and insisting his brother get a tattoo. Niko, bless him, allowed it, although he nixed Cal's first suggestion of a "Bros before Hos" tat. Ha ha! A fun, fast read that managed to be melancholy and uplifting both.

( Favorite lines )

Now, this is certainly an instance where I would have loved to get some of the story in Niko's point of view. I felt bad for him, dealing with a Cal who wasn't quite his Cal, but I don't think it excused what he did to keep his brother happy and Auphe-free. I would have liked to get his reasoning, first-hand. Again, not a fan of amnesia-trope, but it certainly made for a different story in this series. Five stars.


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