Customer Reviews

Movie Cat: A Big Mike Mystery (Big Mike Mysteries)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Garrison Allen's 6th (and hopefully not last) Big Mike book is one of his best. Once again Mikey and Penelope find themselves in the middle of murder and mayhem when very unpopular director C.D. Masterly is found dead, nude and with an angry rattlesnake in the immediate vicinity. All the characters we have come to know in Empty Creek along with some really strange new ones (keep in mind that the people of Empty Creek are NOT the strange ones!) are in this outstanding, funny heartwarming mystery! I promise you, you'll never think of alarm clocks the same way you always have when you see what one does to Mikey! Mikey and Penelope have joined the ranks of Koko and Yum Yum, Midnight Louie and Mrs. Murphy et al in the cat mystery world don't let us lose them. Please let the publishers know that you want more Big Mike mysteries or this one may be the last one!

All of Garrison Allen's "Big Mike" mysteries/comedies are some of the best and most entertaining reading I've encountered in some time. What's interesting about 'Movie Cat' and all of the Allen mysteries are that the murder and whodunit are secondary to the witty and crazy characters populating the books. Penelope and all of her cohorts are funny and of course Big Mike is the primo cat in detective fiction. The food fights, the things he does to Tweedledum and Tweedledee are priceless feline encounters. So, where is the latest Garrison Allen installment? I noticed only two reviews for this book---how sad! Come on mystery readers, have a little, no a LOT of fun. Grab up all the Big Mike mysteries and have yourself one heck of a good time!

The residents of Empty Creek, Arizona would feel right at home in Eerie, Indiana. Penelope Warren, owner of Mycroft and Company mystery bookstore, is a typical resident, who feels she is just an ordinary person. However, eccentric seems more accurate as her cat Mycroft loves lima beans, her horse slobbers over peppermint sticks, and a close friend gives her erotic gifts as jokes. Even weirder is that Penelope believes she is a sleuth, who conducts investigations without being paid or asked to for that matter asked.

Penelope is currently working as an extra in a western being filmed in town by a Hollywood crew. She learns that everyone despises the director, Clarence Davis. So when someone murders Davis, Penelope begins to make inquiries. However, the suspect list includes a cast of hundreds.

Unlike previous novels in the series, the adorable Mycroft takes a back seat to his human counterparts. The secondary characters provide a satirical look at Hollywood on location and Penelope remains an oddball amateur sleuth. The story line includes plenty of cleverly devised misdirections and red herrings so that even a flow chart will not help readers guess the identity of the culprit. In MOVIE CAT, Garrison Allen writes a humorous who-done-it that will receive much acclaim for the subtle and not so subtle ironies.

Harriet Klausner

I looked this author up on the internet under "cat mysteries." Yeah, there's a cat who is as eccentric as the rest of the inhabitants of Empty Creek, Arizona. But the mystery takes second place to the author's need to create a male juvenile paradise where all the women are gorgeous, well-endowed, and willing to strip off their clothes at the drop of a hat, and all the males, however geeky and unattractive they may be, somehow end up with the gorgeous females. Not to say that there aren't humorous parts. The heroine, Penelope gets all the good lines and takes eccentricity to the outer limits. But I've read all of this Mr. Allen's cat books and this is just a rehash of the previous ones. He wrote six of them, ending in 1999, and there's been none since. Probably just as well.

I kept thinking this was a joke but it wasn't. I don't want to meet one person from this book - they are all white trash! I'll re-read Lilian Jackson Braun a thousand times over. This is soft porn for a so called mystery. The cat did nothing except show up on the cover. I won't be taken in again by this author. I threw the book at the wall after 5 chapters & don't care who killed the movie director.

It must be something in the water in Empty Creek Arizona where Penelope Warren makes her home and solves murder mysteries. This volume concocts a fantastic tale in which Hollywood comes to Empty Creek to make a western. Of course the western has to star Penelope's sister Stormy. And, of course, the story starts with a murder -- of the hated director. The denizens of Empty Creek are all there -- most of them hired to act as extras in the movie.

Empty Creek is a great place. All the guys are laid back do-nothings or plain stupid. All the girls are smart, good-looking, and sexy as anything. The hormones rage in town where every night the male population is reduced to wimpering by the female portions. In one memorable passage, one of the Hollywood interlopers refers to the locals as virgins since this is their first film. Withouth pausing for a beat, the local chamber of commerce president, the president of the local bank (whose nude portrait adorns the local bar), several business owners, and others (all females) tell the Hollywoodian that that's terrible and try to decide on who should fix the outsider's problem!

There is also a food fight, a wet t-shirt contest featuring the local lovelies, and a poolside mass seduction scene. Oh, did I mention that some of the actress wannabees run through the desert dressed only in their high heel shoes?

The book is divided into two parts. 15% of the story is about the murder mystery while 85% is about the rioutous activities of the local populace. The writing style is light and breezy with much humor in the rendition. Unfortunately, the named hero (Big Mike) does not do much. Oh, there are several passages that refer to him or his past exploits, but aside from helping avoid some last-second murders, he plays almost no part in what is going on.

The story is fantastic - of course, but it is possible to follow it and try to resolve it in your head before the author hands you everything on a spoon. That is, if you can keep your attention on the mystery rather than the hot gatherings, or laughing your head off!

This is about the same as the other books in this series, which is a pretty good series. The movie setting gives in more glamor and appeal for some people. As usual, Big Mike is a really interesting and well done character, with a much lesser cast of supporting humans. It's an overall well done book.