A review by staticdisplay
The Cat Who Lived High by Lilian Jackson Braun

4.0

I didn't remember reading this before, so a lot of the story came as a surprise to me! Qwilleran heads down south to "Junktown," a crime-infested urban center where he's been asked to preserve a historical building. This leads to a series of conversations where Q is mostly asking people how to spell their names and weather delivered with a summary of the day's grisly slayings. Funny, if you don't take it too seriously. There's also a lot about sensuous mushroom paintings and a bunch of colorful characters

Spoiler

, including a woman who drunkenly flashes Q and whose despair prompts him to share his own tormented past

. It felt a bit more "mature" (and less cozy) than I think the later books are, although that might be a side-effect of the urban setting. The cats are especially catlike. I love these characters, as I've mentioned before, just because of nostalgia & also the quality of the writing (even if the resolution of the mystery comes a bit out of the blue).
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2023: re-reading the series in order (I managed to miss this one, but now I'm caught up). the idea here: you can't go home again. love this series.