Wasn't There begins where The Cat Who Moved a Mountain left off, with the unresolved drama of local librarian Polly's narrow escape from a would-be (and, as of yet, unapprehended) kidnapper. When the opportunity for travel abroad in the form of a group tour of Scotland presents itself, series detective-on-tap Jim Qwilleran seizes the chance to whisk his companion out of danger for a while. The tour soon goes awry, however, as one of the tourists suffers a fatal heart attack that seems less and less accidental with the onset of a subsequent robbery and the loss of the body. The survivors filter back to Moose County, and the hunt to discover what in blazes in going on here begins.
One of the most admirable things about The Cat Who Wasn't There is how it capitalizes on its settings. Braun has pulled the trick of yanking Qwill out of Moose County for field trips before, but those excursions were mostly excuses for giving her hero a new set of characters with which to interact whenever she thought the folks back home were getting a bit stale. In this instance, though, the choice of a Scotland outing was a capital idea; the backdrop of a placid tour of dank castles and bloody battlefields lends the tale a certain...something - but, moreover (and more importantly), it reinforces the subtext of malice lurking beneath innocuousness.
Wasn't There is also one of the few of the latter installments to use its sleepy Moose County backdrop to its advantage. Nothing much seems to occur in the aftermath of the tour; all seems quaint and routine, business-as-usual. One may note a slight peculiarty here or there, but mostly the reader is engrossed in settling back to watch the affairs at hand. The book lulls you into a reverie of reading enjoyment; THEN the mystery gets you. Wasn't There is very enjoyable and very eventful, though the latter is not immediately apparent; only when the entire tale has played itself out, only when all the seemingly meaningless offhand asides and supposedly incidental little plot threads have pulled themselves together (in one heck of an exciting denouement, might I add), does one realize all the plot's dramatic ironies and begin to appreciate its intricacy. This is a subtle, surreptitious puzzle whose structure sneaks up on the protagonists AND the reader; the entire effect seems almost Hitchcockian.
Bonus points go to the fact that the investigation and solving of the mystery is a group effort; it's refreshing to see the Moose County crew used as something other than just part of the setting and have them actively care about what's happened to one of their own rather than using the tragedy for gossip fodder. In short, The Cat Who Wasn't There is immensely readable, very rewarding, and one of Braun's best. All hail, Qwilleran! Hail to thee, sleuth of Pickax!
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