Upon reflection, I was quite fortunate; if you're going to start reading the series non-sequentially, Lived High is a perfect place to start, as it combines the best of Braun's two worlds - the charm and accessability of the Moose County stories and the fantastic web of esoteric characters and Qwilleran-in-adversity scenes of the city episodes. The story (or, rather, its premise - the tale itself is best discovered on one's own) - former antique dealer and old acquaintance of Qwill Amberina Kowbel (of Turned On and Off) calls up our mustachioed hero to enlist his (relatively) new-found financial heft to help save the Casablanca, a rundown but historic apartment house about to be razed to make way for an upscale business complex. To conduct a first-hand feasibility study of the project (and to escape Moose County's "cruel" and "interminable" winters), Qwilleran temporarily moves into the Casablanca and becomes embroiled in an increasingly dangerous and complicated battle.
Ah, but the actual plotline, while gripping, takes a backseat to the crises of conscience our beloved Qwilleran faces. See, in attempting to restore the Casablanca, Qwill is thrown into the vise of a complex moral Catch-22 - without his help, the city fathers will destroy a historical building and leave the (mostly down-and-out) tenants homeless; on the other hand, if he restores the Casablanca to its former glory, the current occupants will be priced out of their home, and the net result, in that respect, will be the same. The plan drawn up by the Save Our Casablanca Kommittee, though, doesn't seem to take the human factor into account; its concerns for preservation are solely architectural. But then, if the Casablanca restoration is so all-important to them, why did SOCK let the building exist as the run-down tenement that it has been for so long, galvanizing only at the eleventh hour, when the wrecking ball is at the door? The preponderance of this complex, no-win dilemma drives the novel, and Braun, thankfully and wisely, shows respect for it and doesn't provide us with pat answers; she simply presents facts and sides and gently weaves the staggering futility of the situation throughout the story.
She does, however, align herself firmly with the tenants, one of the best groups of supporting characters to populate the series to date. I make no bones about the fact that I prefer the city installments to the country ones, due in great to a preference in the surrounding casts. Too often in the "400 miles north of everywhere" episodes (most egregiously in the latter installments) are we asked to sympathize and fascinate ourselves with a cast of eternally happy-to-the-point-of-frivolity folks with "cute" problems and a few token idiosyncracies to separate them from the homogenity of the Great Moose County Common Consciousness. The renters at the Casablanca come across as actual human beings - people just trying to cope with what the world throws at them, meeting their challenges in the best way they can, trying to eke out a little happiness here and there, and, most of the time, getting cut down for it. I can far better empathize with characters like Poor Old Gus, the old retired doorman who takes up his tattered, shabby coat to resume his duties now and then in a sad attempt to regain a little respect and who winds up the victim of a drive-by shooting, or Mrs. Tuttle, the lifelong-resident manager left with the unenviable task of keeping the mess of the building together but who still manages to come off as competent, no-nonsense, and motherly, a wonder deserving of more page time. A moment where elderly resident Mrs. Button, muddled in senility and usually accusing Qwill of all sorts of imagined slights against her, momentarily regains her clarity and compliments Qwilleran on how he looks in his new suit, how much he reminds her of her husband and the nights they used to go out together when he was still alive, is sweetly, sadly touching. And there's an Asian tenant, who's never named and who never speaks, forever harriedly shepherding her two oblivious little children about the building, whisking them from scene to scene, a nice touch of almost-defiant motherly protection against the cruelness of the city. Even the utterly pretentious, unctuous Courtney Hampton is a complete delight, due to the immense effort he puts into being obnoxious - for example, how he uses a recent murder-suicide at the Casablanca as fodder for a prospective merry off-Broadway musical, complete with a rollicking opening number about the resident prostitutes, flashers, "intriguing clutches/ of folks with canes and crutches", and the squalid living conditions at the "Casablanca Cathouse" - "the roof may leak, the hallways reek/ the elevators fail to rise/ the ceiling drop before your eyes". Courtney is one man who works hard at being an exploitative blue-blood, and, yet, there's also a certain pitifulness about him. For all his faults, he's clearly an intelligent, creative man, and he longs to be appreciated and admired and to be in high society for that, but, for whatever reasons, he's excluded from those ranks and thus tries to make do with being a big fish in a little pond - except that the guppies don't care about his lunch invitations from the wealthy owner of the building or his latest Hudson River School acquisition (scammed at bargain-basement price off a lush in need of some quick liquor money), and so he's forced to try to bribe people like Amberina with whom he has nothing in common and would otherwise consider "below" him with offers of parties and gossip to pay him a tiny bit of attention for a few hours. Here is the question that separates a simple cast of extra voices from truly memorable supporting players: could you carry on an actual conversation with this character on any given topic, getting a thought-out, unique perspective on the issue, or is he or she just there to offer flavorful, flippant commentary and induce apropriately amused/amazed/horrified reactions from the core cast? The Casablanca tenants all pass this test with flying colors; Braun's extra little shades of dimension suggest the notion, so refreshing in the mystery genre, that these colorful characters have lives and depth beyond their importance to the plot mechanisms.
Yes, solemn, pause-for-thought-worthy elements abound in Lived High, but Braun serves up ample portions of the series's trademark humor to sporadically alleviate the mood, and it's as well done and memorable as anything else in this novel. The Purple Plum. Qwilleran's restless stay at the motel. The daily matter-of-course enumerations of murder and mayhem on the radio, followed up unflinchingly by a calm report on the weather conditions. The battles with Old Red. The concept of "opalescence". "There is no Chapter 13 in this book." The "climax" to the foreboding, supposedly dramatic-ironic asides scattered throughout Chapter 18. Everything about Arch Riker's appearances. "Spell it" (though half of me cries out "you're trying to say that names like 'Cuttlebrink' and 'Fugtree' are more believable than 'Butra' and 'Thiggamon'?", I have to admit that Qwill does have a point). And, the crowning glory of them all, Qwilleran's unforgettable escalator ride (told through his recollections, in slow motion). For veteran readers, there's the additional chuckle of how much softer Qwilleran has gotten since inheriting his fortune, constantly calling up management to complain that the shower's too cold, the room's too hot, his plastic pails are gone - good grief, is this the same man who, only a few years ago, endured the horrors of the plastic-coated purgatory known as Medicare Manor? Also worth considering - what was the big deal about Qwilleran giving a pear to the Countess? Is Winnie Wingfoot real, or, as Qwilleran wonders, from outer space? (Not that I think that all models must be bimbos; not at all. I simply inquire as to the feasibility of the existence of a personage of such unabated lexiphanticism.) How practical is it for an antiques dealer not to own any sort of vehicle at all (take it from the daughter of a dealer and collector for thirty years, it ain't likely)? How many times can a person want to throttle Polly Duncan for being so maddeningly unsupportive and self-interested over the phone before the fixation becomes unhealthy? Nothing earth- or faith-shaking, but fun to bat around.
And speaking of inquiries. Ah, yes, there is a mystery going here, isn't there? Or should I say mysteries - there are several shrouded misdeeds for Qwilleran to unearth here - most still in the process of being mis-done, which makes for a taut, ever-developing plot in which Qwill attempts to combat often as-of-yet-unknown scoundrels in a situation he is just beginning to understand. The whodunit (and, moreover, whatwuzdun) might go underappreciated by the reader, given that Braun's focus is, as aforementioned, on weightier matters - a fate it doesn't deserve, seeing as how it's so skillfully - well, "constructed" might not be the word - "hidden" is the better choice. The clues are very subtle, naturally worked into the storyline, setting, and offhand conversations and not given in an easy-to-assemble order. Everything - the motive, the modi operandi, the little fatal discrepancies in the neatly spun planted scenario that cause Qwilleran's naturally suspicious mind to wander just a little bit - is deduceable - except, perhaps, for the identity of the main perp, simply because the perp doesn't seem to fit into the conspiracy and doesn't (until final-confrontation time) show any sort of malevolent streak. Ultimately, though, it really doesn't matter if Qwilleran solves the mystery or not, for he is up against powers and problems that the Klingenschoen bucks can't clobber and the cops-and-robbers game can't resolve.
By all means, read The Cat Who Lived High. It showcases Braun at her best and brightest and demonstrates how her flair for detail and depth can take mysteries beyond Mrs. Peacock in the study with the lead pipe. But, one warning - don't expect to get everything out of it on your first reading. Or second. Or third.
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