Book 75, 2021

[chez_jae]

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!