Robbed a Bank Imponderables

In sorting through the numerous responses I've gotten to the "What did you think of The Cat Who Robbed a Bank?" poll (from which I've gotten more feedback than any of the other polls), I've found that a good number of them have included "did anybody else think this was odd?" plot-point questions. I'm not talking about matter-of-opinion questions like "Why did Qwilleran burn the letters?" (which seems to have become to Robbed a Bank what Iris Cobb's fate was to Talked to Ghosts among fans. Personally, I can understand why he did; as I've mentioned previously, Qwilleran's the type who learns what he can from incidents in his life and moves on, not dwelling on the past, and the letters did little but painfully shatter the idealized image he had of his parents; aside from the fact that he was emotionally reacting to a grievous shock, keeping the letters would have only caused him more hurt. The true Imponderable for me would be why Qwilleran was acting like such a jerk throughout the rest of the story, which I can only chalk up to off writing).

I'm talking about leaps in logic or breaks in series continuity in Robbed a Bank (which I'm calling Imponderables here, after the series of books that explore odd, obscure, and seemingly unanswerable questions about life and culture ("If nothing sticks to Teflon, how do they get Teflon to stick to the pan?")). I've therefore decided to attempt to catalog these queries here for discussion and debate. (For those who object that I'm abusing my supposed fan-page to yet again go after a recent Cat Who... book, I'll note that these glitches had little effect on the parts of Robbed a Bank that I found truly enjoyable and moving and are, after all, the type of little niggling snarls that some fans do pick up on) I know I haven't caught all of our Imponderables, so if you find any more, please e-mail me:

• Why did Osmond Hasselrich "will" the Annie-Fanny letters to Qwill? Why didn't he give Qwill the letters long ago? There would've have been any personal repercussions for Hasselrich if he had released the letters to Qwilleran, and the man was always nothing but forthright with Qwill. (I realize there had to have been some plot device to reason away the delay in the discovery of the letters, but the explanation given has considerable logic problems. A more mundane approach, like the discovery of a forgotten safety deposit box or a secluded hiding spot on Klingenschoen property, would've been more plausible.) And to take this one step further...

• Why were the letters in Hasselrich's possession, anyway? Penelope Goodwinter was Fanny's attorney before her death, remember? Even if they had been transferred to Osmond's hands after Penelope's passing, he, again, wouldn't have had any personal reason to keep them from Qwill. (Which brings up another point: if Penelope had them previously, there wouldn't have been any reason for her to have kept the letters from Qwill, either. The story, however, seems to have forgotten about Penelope all together, taking the attitude that Hasselrich had them all along.)

• Why is Moose County suddenly part of a renowned, important "tri-county area" when we hadn't even heard of Bixby County for fifteen-odd books set in the country previous to its introduction? I know Braun means to introduce some new locales to the series via Bixby County, but if it were so integral to the identity of the region, then why was it heretofore unknown for such a long time? I've harped on this matter extensively before, both with Bank and Saw Stars, but it still gets me (especially since Bixby isn't filling any role in the books that Chipmunk didn't previously...).

• Brought up by Eileen: In Saw Red, Qwill hears someone outdoors humming a tune, and fondly remembers that it was his father's favorite song. If the father died before Qwill was born, how would Qwill know what his father's favorite song was, much less feel sentimental about it? True, his mother could have told him that "Loch Lomond" was his father's favorite song, but Qwilleran's fondness for the song seems derived from personal memories of his father. Even if his mother had sung "Loch Lomond" to him herself to give Qwill a sense of what his father was like, most, if not all, of Qwilleran's fond associations with the song still would have been transferred to his mother, not to his father.

• Brought up by a fellow Cat Who... fan named Joann (who also phrased the first question about the Hasselrich will): During his tour of the new Inn with Fran Brodie, he asks her who lives across the street (in the building with the five cats by the windows). Fran answers, "Mrs. Sprenkle. The Sprenkle family owns the whole block." Having lived in Pickax for quite some time, wouldn't Qwill know a family that owns "the whole block"? I totally missed this until Joann mentioned it, but it's another glaring logic leap.

• Also by Eileen: Qwilleran has referred to the unique spelling of his name as Scottish; why is it now said to be Danish? Yes, his mother's Mackintosh lineage is his primary source of Scottish pride, but, as in chapter one of Could Read Backwards:
  Arch: "Do you still spell your name with that ridiculous W?"
  Qwill: "It's a respectable Scottish spelling."
  So...

• Why does Beverly Forfar say in her letter to Qwilleran that she's found a job in "Ann Arbor, Michigan" when it's been suggested so often in so many ways previously that Moose County itself is located in Michigan? Wouldn't it be awkward to refer to the state in which the letter's author and recipient both lived in the "third person", so to speak? Wouldn't it be more natural for Beverly to just mention the name of the town to which she relocated if her move was in-state? Was Braun just trying to throw a wrench in the works of our comfortably-held perceptions? Or did she just think that not enough people knew where Ann Arbor was? (Heck, she mentioned the relatively-obscure "Skaneateles" in Went into the Closet without mentioning that it was in New York.) I've discussed the option of the conceited, condescending Beverly Forfar having a low enough opinion of Qwilleran to think that he wouldn't know where Ann Arbor was, but I'm not convinced now that that explanation covers everything.

• Why is the library now considered the "hub of Pickax gossip" when the Dimsdale Diner (or, it could be argued, in later books, Lois's Luncheonette) always held that distinction previously? And what sense would it make to choose as your town's gossip hub a place where the visitors are always being shushed?

• From my Robbed a Bank random thoughts: Brodie claims that he was "skeptical" of Lieutenant Hames's claims of Koko having great powers? Then why did Brodie come rushing over in Act I, Scene I of Sniffed Glue to see if he could exploit Koko's sixth sense to catch some local vandals? Actually, there seems to be a lot of confusion as to who knows or thinks what about Koko's talents as of late; it's been mentioned a few times in the last couple books that Arch was never told of the cat's gifts, despite several episodes contradicting that in the city books.

• Eileen: Finally, if Andy Brodie is scheduled to come to Qwill's barn at 10:00, how can he possibly pick up his wife at that hour? I have no answer for this one. ^_^

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