Rebecca Capowski's view of The Cat Who Played Post Office
I called The Cat Who Played Brahms "a big shrug", and, while I loathe being repetitous, I'm tempted to apply the same label to its successor, The Cat Who Played Post Office. There are individual elements that stick in my memory - the welcome presences of Arch Riker and Iris Cobb (nearly outweighed, alas, by the annoyingness of Qwill girl Melinda Goodwinter) and the excellent opening scene, perhaps the only instance in any work of fiction where the idea of amnesia is put to good use - but the overall plot always escapes me; it's (déjà vu from Brahms again) forgettable and ill-played. The mystery - beginning with the disappearance of a housemaid from the Klingenschoen mansion five years ago - ends up too sordid to be relished as a crime-whodunit (and, I might note, there is far too little initial evidence of criminal involvement in the girl's departure for Qwilleran to launch an investigation, which, to add to the story's disinvolvement problems, makes it seem as if he's just going through the motions - that there has to be an unsolved mystery around here *somewhere*, because what he's doing at the present time is being documented in a Cat Who... novel). His inquest does eventually elicit a marvellously eloquent letter from another character that is a beautiful example of just how well Braun herself can write; on the other hand, however, this gimmick is a complete gift solution - Qwilleran wasn't even close to solving the case before its arrival. Furthermore, the elegance with which the letter's final paragraphs tie everything together so nicely and with such finality makes the obligatory physical confrontation with the killer (which is becoming clichéd at this point in the series) seem all the more superfluous and tired. My review must end here. I realize that I'm being short, but if I write anything more about Post Office, I run the risk of yammering on without saying really anything new, and I have no desire to emulate the subject of my critique any more than I already have.
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The Cat Who... series (The Cat Who Could Read Backwards and its sequels) and all its characters, places, and what-have-yous therein are the copyrighted property of Lilian Jackson Braun. Ronald Frobnitz and Family is an unofficial Cat Who... fan site and is not endorsed by or affiliated with Lilian Jackson Braun, G. P. Putnam's Sons, or anyone else involved with the production and publication of the Cat Who... series.