Felidae [Hardcover]

Akif Pirincci (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 26, 1993

An internationally acclaimed suspense novel features the adventures of Francis, a house cat who, in trying to catch the murderer of his feline friends, meets up with a bizarre cat cult, a kitty computer whiz, and a perceptive Persian. 20,000 first printing. $20,000 ad/promo.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A clever, offbeat thriller in which the sleuth and most of the other main characters are cats, this first novel by Turkish-born Pirincci, who lives in Bonn, won Germany's prize for best crime novel of the year in 1990. As an allegory on Germany's Nazi past, it is facile and ambivalent. The detective/narrator, Francis, an irrepressibly curious house cat, deduces that whoever is murdering the neighborhood tabbys has a warped mind and is attempting to breed a "super race" of felines. After discovering a fanatical cult of self-flagellating felines who worship a martyred cat, Claudandus, Francis is aided by Pascal, a cat who uses a computer, in unearthing another clue--the journal of a half-mad professor who performed sadistic laboratory experiments on cats. The corpses of countless feline victims are thrown into a catacomb guarded by the Persian cat Jesaja, a pathetic dupe who prays both to Yahweh (god of the Hebrews) and to "our blessed Prophet," the murderer, believing that he is doing the Lord's will. Is Pirincci satirizing monotheistic religion, or the alleged passivity of Jews who believed that Hitler would spare them? Such troubling questions are left unanswered. This fable is most effective as an acerbic commentary on humanity's follies, obtuseness and knack for evil.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

An award-winning crime novel in Germany, this "cat" mystery should appeal to readers of Lilian Braun, Rita Mae Brown, et al. The literate narrator and main character here is one highly intelligent, fascinating, and capable cat. A new resident in an area of refurbished old mansions, Francis discovers the first in a gruesome series of murder victims and, curiosity aroused, determines to trap the murderer. The unaccustomed feline outlook, cat lore, and learned approach result in an absorbing first effort. Recommended.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Villard; 1st edition (January 26, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 067942069X
• ISBN-13: 978-0679420699
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #511,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pirinçci was born on the 29th April 1959 in Istanbul. He began to write fiction at a young age, and published his first novel "Tränen sind immer das Ende" (literally meaning "Tears always are the End") in 1980, at the age of 21. His next literary work, published in 1989, was the novel "Felidae", a work of crime fiction with cats as the main protagonists. The novel has been translated into 17 languages and became an international bestseller. Due to the enormous success of the novel, Pirinçci expanded his concept of "cat crime fiction" and published several sequels to Felidae, out of which only one, namely "Felidae on the Road", has been translated into English. An animated movie based on Felidae, the script of which had been co-written by Pirinçci, has been produced in Germany in 1994, and was also dubbed in English. Pirinçci has published several other novels which were not set in the fictional reality of the Felidae series. He had a big success with his fantastic thriller "The Door" which was made into a german moving picture with Mads Mikkelsen ("Casino Royal") and will be remade by Hollywood.
Pirinçci currently lives in Bonn, the former capital of the Federal Republic of Germany.
Wikipedia

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You'll never look at Tiddles the same way again, November 8, 2000

By 

Cartimand (Hampshire, UK.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Felidae (Hardcover)

This book was a real surprise. I started it on a whim, expecting a fairly lightweight fable in a similar vein to Watership Down or House of Tribes. How wrong I was! I was soon drawn into this sometimes extremely dark and gothic tale of murder, torture, religious fundamentalism and eugenics! There are obvious parallels with the state of humankind herein and I often wondered to what extent Pirincci intended his work to be allegorical. It certainly contains some moments of quite profound wisdom and made me think long and hard about how we treat our fellow inhabitants of planet Earth. If the reader would prefer not to get hung up on the philosophising then, no problem! Felidae is also a rattling good whodunnit, with twists and turns aplenty and a very dramatic and shocking denouement. Our hero Francis is an extremely likeable character, as is his battered and uncouth sidekick Bluebeard. The footnotes even provide plenty of fascinating information about feline habits and I guarantee that next time you pat puss on the head, you'll wonder how much they really appreciate your care or do they just think of you as an idiot "tin-opener" certainly inferior to their own supreme intellect. Felidae may be a little whimsical for some readers, but if you set your disbelief to one side and just sit back and enjoy this unique novel (preferably with a cat curled up on your lap), you will not be disappointed.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Cat Mystery That Is Not a Cosy, September 15, 2005

By 

Wyatt James "Grobius" (Brooklyn NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Felidae (Hardcover)

All right, this was written by a cat named Francis (Gustav is his owner and is a jerk like Garfield's Jon). There seems to be a vogue now for detective stories with cat heros, but I have resisted reading any of them up to now, even though I love and admire cats. Read this one because of its beautiful cover picture, and the fact that the author is a German Turk who writes very well even in translation to English (kudos to Ralph Noble in that role). This book is about a mass murderer of cats, by a cat, who has some mad-scientist dream of breeding a super race of felines who will come to dominate the world and eradicate or enslave human beings. A very cynical version of Animal Farm which also reminds me of that appalling book Perfume and also of Jorge Luis Borges. No Englishman could have written this, but the Englishness of it is pervasive --i.e. the morality (in spite of the political incorrectness of defending Anglo-Saxon ethos these days). The gimmick here is of course that cats are just as smart as we are, and spend the time while we are asleep at night reading our books and playing on our computers, and discussing Kierkegaardian philosophy when they are not driven crazy by the pheremones of females in heat (smelly stuff to us humans, but what do we know about the powers and subtleties of smells?)

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Bestselling Novel Of Cats And Murder!, January 15, 2002

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Felidae (Hardcover)

I purchased this book in an England Secondhand store. For 60 Pence. It was, I found, One of the best books I have ever read!

This book is for anyone at all. You don't even have to like cats.

I wish my cat could read it!!!

:-)