The Black Cat Rant

I haven't read any Martha Grimes mysteries in years. She's an American writer who sets her mysteries in England. Her Richard Jury series are titled after and centered around various British pubs. I liked the first few I read, which was twenty years ago, but then I got tired of them. I picked up the latest one at the library yesterday for lack of anything better to read. I did find it readable, even charming. The Black Cat, it's called, after a pub. She dedicated the book to her recently deceased cat.

OK, people, remember back in the day when you prefaced your critical remarks of a gender, religion, or ethnicity with "It's not that I have anything against --" (Fill in the blank) followed by "Some of my best friends are --" Again, fill in the blank. Well, these days, it's come around to animals, a touchy subject for besotted pet-owners who are sensitive to any criticism of the animal kingdom so I'll just repeat, "It's not that I have anything against dogs or cats, but really, a mystery written from their point of view? Isn't that a little absurd, not to mention too sickeningly cute?" And yet that has become a popular subgenre of the mystery genre, if you can believe it. Never has the form sunk so low. Literally low, a dog or cat's point of view coming from ground-level.

Well, Martha Grimes has sunk that low. Most of the book is written from a human point of view, but a couple of sections are written in the voice of a dog, Mungo, who engages in dialogue and shenanigans with (you guessed it) a black cat named Morris. After my rant, here's my humiliating confession: I actually enjoyed reading those bits. I liked the animals' personalities, their antics and their conversations.