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CREATURE COZIES is a collection of 11 short stories starring either a cat or a dog helping to solve a mystery. The first and last stories are the only ones written from the animal's point of view and are, not coincidentally, my favorites. Junior Partner in Crime is Carole Nelson Douglas' imagination of how her stray cat ended up in the condition in which he was adopted, granting Midnight Louie Jr a noble sense of heroism as he tries to save an old lady being abused by her caretakers. Lost and Found by Jan Burke is a dog's-eye view of cadaver-sniffing for the police, where Britches and his canine trainer Sherlock figure out the crime before the humans do. In Highest Best Use, J A Jance takes on ageism, murder, and golden retrievers. This was one of the least workable stories in the book; I couldn't get over that the heroine decided that a crime was committed when she didn't get a thank-you note for returning the purse that her dogs retrieved from the surf. Most people would have considered the passport and the thousands of hidden dollars as something of a clue. Jill M Morgan's Scratch That One is also a thin story. I can believe that a cat could break antiques if it was taken to the shop. I can believe that the antique might hide a clue to an old mystery. What I can't believe is any business owner who would be so casually amused by the continued destruction of their inventory. Had He But Known by Marlys Millhiser and Edelweiss by Jane Haddam are both cat stories with an unexpected twist at the end. The Edelweiss climax was more surprising, but the plot left you with more questions than the Millhiser story. Maxine O'Callaghan's Going to the Dogs deliberately leaves a question or two at the end, but it's an interesting story with a faint X-Files theme. The longest entry in the anthology is Ed Gorman's Crystal's Big Night, a nice World War II period piece with the hardships of the Home Front, spies, and a kleptomaniacal cat. Like all anthologies, there are great stories and mediocre ones, making it hard to give an overall rating. None of the stories is a total clunker though, not even the thank-you note one, so CREATURE COZIES would make a pleasant afternoon's reading for the animal lover.
Reviewed by Linnea Dodson, March 2005
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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