Paws to Remember

May 1, 2023

When remains are discovered behind the walls of a store run by an artists' co-op, soon determined to be those of a woman who has been missing for 30 years, librarian Kathleen Paulson enlists the help of her "magical cats" to help her discover what happened. Next in the New York Times best-selling series. Prepub Alert.

Copyright 2023 Library Journal

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 15, 2023
A body discovered behind drywall leads an adopted woman in a small town to question where she's really from. Kathleen Paulson is a dependable friend. She's somebody you can call to help with rodent duty, which is exactly what her friend Maggie does when a pipe bursts in the River Arts building, her artists' co-op, leaving her with the unenviable tasks of ripping out drywall and finding God-knows-what in the walls. It's not that Kathleen is some sort of rodent Dr. Doolittle; she just has the help of supernaturally talented cats Owen and Hercules to do some of the dirty work. As they would say, Merow. While tearing down the walls, Kathleen, Maggie, and Harry the maintenance man find something more shocking than a mouse or two: a human body shrouded in plastic and probably hidden in the wall a few decades ago. In bucolic Mayville Heights, Minnesota, it's appalling enough to find a body, but Kathleen's fiance, Det. Marcus Gordon, and the rest of the department think the body is that of a murder victim. When it's identified as Lily Abbott, a heavily pregnant teen who everyone assumed had run away, Kathleen is saddened to imagine what may have happened. And she's scandalized when Ella King approaches her with the suggestion that Lily had given birth before her death, and that she, Ella, is Lily's daughter. Given her great track record of nosing into past Mayville mysteries and with Marcus as an inside connection to the police, Kathleen is determined to help Ella learn the truth about her origins. Heavy on the world of continuing characters, with a few cat moments thrown in as crowd pleasers.

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July 1, 2023

It's cold even for Mayville Heights, MN, standards. Add in a power outage, and a water pipe breaks in an old building used by the local artists' co-op. Librarian Kathleen Paulson brings in Owen, one of her magical cats, to trap a rodent at the co-op. When she stays to help pull down wet drywall, she finds a woman's body wrapped in plastic. Detective Marcus Gordon, Kathleen's fianc�, hasn't even had a chance to investigate before the local newspaper speculates that the body might belong to Lily Abbott, an 18-year-old pregnant teen who disappeared 36 years earlier. Back then, Lily's brother was the only one who believed that she didn't run away, but he's long dead. A local woman asks Kathleen to investigate because she believes that Lily was her birth mother. Kathleen knows she's stirring up trouble when a woman is hospitalized following a fake suicide. She sets out to check on one more clue, but never thought rescue would come in the form of her cat Hercules and his affinity for a neighbor's dog. VERDICT The sequel to Whiskers and Lies combines a cold case, magical cats, and a librarian in a charming mystery about family. It's a winner for series fans.--Lesa Holstine

Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.