Vandals are on a rampage through Moose County, defacing public property, hacking open hydrants, and even torching office buildings. Their mayhem seemingly culminates with the shooting death of Harley Fitch, scion of Pickax's premier banking family, and his wife, Belle. The manhunt is on, but Qwill's famous moustache and Koko's curious new addiction to adhesives point him in another direction, and, in addition to setting up a new newspaper for Moose County and dealing with his failing relationship with Polly Duncan, our hero sets out to sort out the truth behind the Fitch family tragedy.
The mystery is one of Braun's best to date, bowing only to The Cat Who Could Read Backwards and The Cat Who Saw Red. Part of it may draw from cliches, but it uses them so deftly that it never seems derivative or cliched. It's well-thought-out and well-paced - indeed, much of the story's impact is drawn from its pacing; Qwilleran visualizes an array of possible scenarios based on the information he has on the case at the time, yet each is struck down by a new disclosure, the evolution of his theories gradually carving out the truth and subtly leading the reader's train of thought. And, as I've said, the mystery is very sneaky - several of its significant developments are unrecognizable as such at first, as they are (slyly) easily explained away by what the reader would take as seemingly obvious conclusions. My only quibble is that the conclusion/confrontation could have been a bit more...adept; its revelations needed to have been brought out in a more fitting way than a fight scene. But this complaint is just that, a quibble; The Cat Who Sniffed Glue is an excellent technical exercise.
Sniffed Glue is also the first great Cat Who... mystery that does not involve delving into the particulars of any unusual profession or obscure sub-culture, and it thrives very nicely without it. This is thanks mostly to the background work in Knew Shakespeare; we're now well-invested enough in Qwill's friends in Moose County that what happens to them, what happens within the community, and how they react to both matters to us, to the point where the introduction of and fixation on a new, unfamiliar element would be unnecessary, if not antithetical. Now that Braun has finally gotten the small-town angle to work, this was the appropriate mystery to stage to capitalize on it.
The human-interest subplots work. Arch Riker's proposal to Amanda Goodwinter was a nice, light touch, and the seriousness (or, rather, the lack thereof) with which it was taken was typical of their relationship. Heck, it's fun to watch Amanda barge in and out of the story, proposal or no; she's the most entertaining of Moose County's natives at this juncture, in great part because she's refreshingly ill-humored and grouchy and, as opposed to the catty, over-the-back-fence whispers so common in Moose County, shoots straight from the hip. Our look at Qwilleran's own love problems also enriched the series; though Polly Duncan first appeared in The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare, we didn't really learn much about her romance with Qwill. Here, we learn a bit more - Polly's not a *gold* digger, as Qwilleran fears she will be perceived, but, through her fierce anger with him for quitting trying to write a novel, the story hints that she was, originally, interested in him for her own personal gain; she thought she could aggrandize herself by being romantically linked to a great writer, and Qwill's decision to remain a newspaper hack ruined her chances of such. But the snap decision Polly makes that sparks their reconciliation proves, both to the readers and to herself, that she does, indeed, love him for other, truer, sounder reasons, giving the relationship a sounder fooundation and new life and hope.
But enough with the mush - other things, other things. The foundation of Moose County's new newspaper was entertaining, yet in a somewhat different way from Qwill's journalistic exploits Down Below; instead of the constant pressure of deadlines and exasperation with menial assignments, we simply have some friends getting together for a project, trying their best, running into the usual hijinks along the way, and inevitably having it (innocuously) mucked up by happenstance and rural cantankerousness. The camaraderie between the staffers and the what-the-heck-are-we-doing-here legwork-paperwork-teamwork hard work brought back fond memories of The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern's best points, and I relished it.
One last comment. Though the text itself is still in the form of descriptive prose with third-person viewpoint, the structure of the book takes on that of a play, with two acts, a prologue, epilogue, and intermission; in place of chapters are prefaced with the place, time, and a short cast listing. Gimmicks, for the most part, collapse under close inspection from their own capriciousness. This one doesn't; in this smart-yet-breezy, intelligent-but-not-*too*-serious novel, it seemed to be the finishing touch. Bravo, Braun; The Cat Who Sniffed Glue is deserving of a standing ovation, and I hope we see an encore.
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