The Cat Who Talked Turkey (Hardcover)

by Lilian Jackson Braun (Author) "One of Qwilleran's "Qwill Pen" columns recently made this statement: "A town without a bookstore is like a chicken with one leg..." (more)
Key Phrases: souvenir book, nice young lady, bird garden, Moose County, Qwill Pen, Yum Yum (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Like other recent books in Braun's best-selling series that began with The Cat Who Could Read Backwards (1966), this loosely plotted novel, the 26th to feature Siamese cats Koko and Yum Yum and Moose County journalist Jim Qwilleran, isn't quite up to the standard of earlier entries, but it still provides plenty of escapist fun. The shooting death of a well-dressed gentleman in the woods on Qwill's property is nearly neglected in the fuss and excitement engendered by the neighboring town of Brrr's bicentennial. On the trail of a story for the celebration, Qwill interviews Edythe Carroll, a wealthy widow who has retired to Ittibittiwassee Estates from the magnificent mansion she plans to leave to her granddaughter, Lish (short for Alicia). Little does Edythe know that Lish and her boyfriend, Lush, have already trashed the place. After dozing off in his gazebo after a busy day, Qwill is startled awake by strange noises, including some coming from Koko. Enter an entire family of wild turkeys. If this all sounds like a bit of a ramble, it's quite in keeping with the story, which wanders pleasantly around Moose County, surveying its eccentric citizens as they go about their idiosyncratic business. In spite of two murders and a pair of villains, the tale is as cozy as an hour spent cuddling your favorite cat.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
For fans of this series featuring Siamese cats Yum Yum and the clairvoyant Koko, there are no surprises in the twenty-sixth installment. The felines' owner, James "Qwill" Qwilleran, is just as rich and listener friendly as ever, his place of residence, Pickax, in Moose County, is still 400 miles north of anywhere else, and people are still murdered with astounding regularity, though Koko, who can sense a homicide a mile a way, is never surprised. Those who love the series appreciate Braun's attention to detail as she describes Pickax and the surrounding area, which while magnificently rural also boasts many fine dining establishments, places to buy the New York Times, and an abundance of cabs, as well as a limousine service. The citizenry, laconic, timidly happy, or in the case of Qwill's librarian lady friend, stupefyingly boring, would feel right at home in Lake Woebegone. The several murders committed here are really beside the point--in fact, except for the cat screeching you might miss them entirely. More attention is paid to Qwill's radio reenactment of the Great Blizzard of 1913 (the audience, of course, must pretend radio existed in 1913), which takes up a number of the book's pages. Loyal readers find the series' inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies charming, but even they, at times, must wish for less of Qwill and more of the cats. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Putnam Adult; First Trade Edition edition (January 26, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0399151079
• ISBN-13: 978-0399151071
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (91 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #620,163 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

• This is item 26 in The Cat Who... Series.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars There But For The Feathers..., March 17, 2004

By	Marc Ruby™ "The Noh Hare™" (Warren, MI USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

I'm not sure what is more embarrassing. Admitting that I like Lilian Brown's the Cat Who... stories or confessing that I actually own all of them. They really are pleasant reading - as long as you never try to read several in a row. But we are long past the moment in time when a new reader is going to come into the series and feel the least bit of a connection. To quote the prophet, 'You had to have been there...'

One of the more glaring problems with the latest novels it that they have become parodies of the cozy genre in which the belong. They are sooo cozy that the books are hardly mysteries. Instead, they are little pastiches of the adventures and foibles of their hero Qwilleran and his two dainty cats, the dainty Yum Yum and her psychic companion Ko Ko. So the entire mystery here, which is about bodies cropping up and suspicious relatives, occupies a maximum of 30 of the book's 181 pages.

The rest is Qwill eating, feeding the cats, Qwill flirting with his steady Polly, feeding the cats, Qwill acting or writing, feeding the cats, calling wild turkeys, feeding the cats... Well, you get what I mean. Occasionally Ko Ko issues his death yowl and another unfortunate dies. After which, Ko Ko pulls a book off the shelves as a clue. And then even more feeding of the cats.

Obviously, you don't read these books because of their compelling, dark crimes or meaningful character development. You read them to munch popcorn with or to lose an hour or two in a world even sillier than the one we live in. Even so, I continue to like them in small doses. I'm not sure if I can really explain why. Now I have to go feed the cats...

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Talking Turkey is a turkey, September 9, 2004

By	Alice L. Ramirez (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have wanted to write for a long time that Ms. Jackson-Braun, or whoever is now ghostwriting for her, or her editor, should realize that Polly Duncan would make a far more interesting murder victim than Qwilleran paramour. That comment could apply to almost all the mysteries set in Moose County, not just this latest. Polly is tedious, boring, annoying, predictable, rigid and humorless; her jealousy isn't interesting, it just cramps Qwill's style. I am sick to death of her diet hangups, her endless tuna fish sandwich lunches and every other part of her. The earlier Cat Who.. books, in which he gets involved with an assortment of interesting younger women connected to the various mysteries, were more fun than the latter ones where his love life is dominated by that staid, hyperconventional librarian. (Since I am writing about a fictional character, not a real life human being, I don't feel evil in stating that I was sorely disappointed that Polly's heart attack of a few books ago didn't kill her.) A mystery surrounding her fervantly-yearned-for murder could combine Qwill, wracked by grief, confronting his old alcohol demons, perhaps unearthing a secret double life Polly leads, perhaps a new love interest working with or against him as he struggles to find out who bumped off his lady love. It would make a far more interesting mystery than The Cat Who Talked Turkey turned out to be. But I digress....

As a mystery, the Cat Who Talked Turkey is a very frustrating experience. I am still not clear WHY the stiff found on Qwill's property, or the other stiff in Northern Michigan were killed, although it was pretty obvious from the onset who-dun-it. A clear motive would have helped. I will probably continue to buy this series because I am fond of the whole Moose County scene,but I wish ... if Ms. Jackson-Braun is still really writing these, the publisher would hire a good ghostwriter and put her out to pasture. If the publisher is now using a ghostwriter to keep this lucrative series alive, surely it could find a better one! I mean, seriously, with all the hungry and TALENTED writers out there, surely the publisher could find just ONE willing to prostitute her talents to take over this rather lovable series.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars LIKE GOING HOME TO OLD FRIENDS...BUT GETTING STALE, April 24, 2005

By	Gwen Forlenza "Crow Lady" (NE Vermont USA) - See all my reviews

I almost didn't bother to write a review on this book since the last couple of reviews were so in tune with the way I felt. But I do have a couple of things to add which may hopefully help other would-be readers. Some years ago my mother-in-law mentioned a series of books which featured a man who wrote for a newspaper & solved mysteries with his cats. These books were passed around among the other 70-something women in her circle. I love animals-5 cats & 2 rabbits dwell under our roof-but this sounded just a little cutesy for me, fodder for the gray-haired set. A couple of weeks later a box arrived with the first 10 "Cat Who..." books. Curious in spite of myself, I read the first & then proceeded to barrel through all 10, eagerly waiting for the next "installment". I was hooked. No, Ms. Braun did not exhibit Dickens's beautiful prose or Mary Higgins Clark's (then) power to hold you to the edge of your seat. They were just fun. It must be difficult to maintain a series for a long period of time. That may be why some authors have more than one series going at a time.

For me, the books lost something when Qwill inherited the Klingenschoen fortune & moved with KoKo & Yum Yum to PickAx, but they were still enjoyable. When he got involved with Polly, the debonair Qwill was no longer "available" to other female characters-Polly was a bit jealous you see-and this erased an element of the books that I had enjoyed. I found myself liking the books more when her character was somewhere else. She was so insufferably proper & well, boring. Yes, Qwill found her companionship gratifying. I almost felt guilty about not liking her...almost. I love the converted apple barn & enjoyed his visits to the cabin on the lake. Unfortunately, the visits to the cabin became less & less frequent. Qwill, the wealthy benefactor, was no longer the struggling journalist divorcee with the alcoholic past. The last few books have drifted into nothing less than aimlessness. In The Cat Who Talked Turkey, one character was killed in a car accident (or was it an accident?). We didn't know the character, so it wasn't a personal loss. The second murder was almost thrown into all of the socializing-visiting, going to dinner, the opening of the new book store-in order to retain its mystery genre.

I will still read the "Cat Who..." books because I like most of the characters. I like Qwill & I love the cats. Most of the other characters are pretty corny, but I like them too. It is like going home to old friends. They're easy to read without a lot of concentration at the end of a busy day when my brain is ready to shut down for the night. But if Ms. Braun is going to continue with this series, she is going to have to rescue it from the tedium that has crept into it. Otherwise, she'll eventually lose this reader.