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A review by helenh
The Ice Maid's Tail by Mandy Morton
4.0
The Ice Maid’s Tail is the latest in the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency series. This is #8, a wonderful achievement.
Hettie Bagshot and Tilly Jenkins are our private detectives of record. Never mind that they’re cats. You know that if you’ve read the other books in the series, and you should have, of course (well, the cover, the title and the book description are all clues of a sort, but who’s counting? Let’s not be clever clogs here). Otherwise, they walk, they talk and they solve mysteries like humans do, and they’ve got a doozy on their paws here.
It’s a dire winter in their little village, and everybody’s hunkered down, trying to survive as best they can. A lot of the local folk have been put up at Wither-Fork Hall, a large baronial mansion. Word comes that some orphaned kittens are missing, kittens that have been kept in the Folly on the mansion grounds. Now, Tilly senses things, and the Folly at the manse doesn’t feel “right” to her. She knows about these things. And the reader will, too, as the story goes along.
The kittens may have run away rather than be exposed any longer to the strict religious training of the orphanage’s leaders. If they have, they’ve probably frozen to death. It’s a gruesome beginning.
And there’s a precedent to our tale, and where the title of the book comes from – a horror story told to impressionable young kittens, the stuff of young feline nightmares, as the resident gypsy cat calls it. I don’t make this stuff up, folks. Our author, Mandy Morton does, and a good thing, too. It’s fun, and entertaining, and as much in keeping with the tenor of the series as the other books.
There’s a mysterious fire to contend with. Are the little kits really dead? The house has its secrets -- what’s behind it all? It all comes to a head in the caves underneath Wither-Fork Hall. Evil and cruelty come in many forms, feline as well as human. And we learn that feline justice is final, and without remorse. Tilly and Hettie and their friends and co-workers have it all well in hand.
Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for a copy of this book, in exchange for this review.
Hettie Bagshot and Tilly Jenkins are our private detectives of record. Never mind that they’re cats. You know that if you’ve read the other books in the series, and you should have, of course (well, the cover, the title and the book description are all clues of a sort, but who’s counting? Let’s not be clever clogs here). Otherwise, they walk, they talk and they solve mysteries like humans do, and they’ve got a doozy on their paws here.
It’s a dire winter in their little village, and everybody’s hunkered down, trying to survive as best they can. A lot of the local folk have been put up at Wither-Fork Hall, a large baronial mansion. Word comes that some orphaned kittens are missing, kittens that have been kept in the Folly on the mansion grounds. Now, Tilly senses things, and the Folly at the manse doesn’t feel “right” to her. She knows about these things. And the reader will, too, as the story goes along.
The kittens may have run away rather than be exposed any longer to the strict religious training of the orphanage’s leaders. If they have, they’ve probably frozen to death. It’s a gruesome beginning.
And there’s a precedent to our tale, and where the title of the book comes from – a horror story told to impressionable young kittens, the stuff of young feline nightmares, as the resident gypsy cat calls it. I don’t make this stuff up, folks. Our author, Mandy Morton does, and a good thing, too. It’s fun, and entertaining, and as much in keeping with the tenor of the series as the other books.
There’s a mysterious fire to contend with. Are the little kits really dead? The house has its secrets -- what’s behind it all? It all comes to a head in the caves underneath Wither-Fork Hall. Evil and cruelty come in many forms, feline as well as human. And we learn that feline justice is final, and without remorse. Tilly and Hettie and their friends and co-workers have it all well in hand.
Thanks to the publisher and to NetGalley for a copy of this book, in exchange for this review.