Rating: 
Summary: Not best of series, but okay company
Review: A couple of days after our monumental tragedy..., I needed something extremely light and removed for those sleepless hours after sticking so close to the news and trying to do something, anything and ultimately feeling helpless. This was the closest available book that fit the bill. Did it help? Nothing can. Did it at least provide some distraction? Yeah, some. This series is a familiar one to me, one of the few of the mystery genre I come back to. In the tradition of the English village mysteries, Brown has created a world unto itself in the Virginia countryside outside of Charlottesville. It is a place where a few residents still cling to what Mark Twain called FFV-Founding Families of Virginia-status and codes alongside characters who are more in tune with the New South and contemporary American mores. The series has a schtick-the heroine's pets solve the crimes but let the humans take the bows. Brown is at her best when she stays true to the world she has created, and she sticks with it in CLAWS AND EFFECT. (Though after so many books, the little town of Crozet sports a community hospital, a nearby private prep school, a subdivision, a strip mall and other features that would suggest a town that requires a fuller, multiservice postal system, not the little village center with a single postmistress.) Brown is off her rhythm in the plotting and exposition this time out. It is obvious and the criminals are uninteresting. Sadly, a regular character, a nice guy, is killed off. The hunt scenes are well drawn, and as always, there is the banter between the series regulars, especially the women. And the author can really write a sentence; even the simplest have grace and style. I think Brown (excuse me, the Browns) is (are) simply revving up to do a better job next time out.
Rating:
Summary: Another great Mrs. Murphy book
Review: During a tough winter very much like this one, the residents of Crozet have cabin fever. Interest turns to the local hospital when one of the employees gets murdered. Local legend has it that the hospital was once a stop on the Underground Railroad. Surprizing as it may seem, all of these elements combine to make a really entertaining mystery novel. I love the talking animals and the local characters.
Rating: 
Summary: If it ain't broke, don't fix it
Review: Ever since the dog and cats joined together to drive a truck to save Blair's life, I have resisted the temptation to buy these books when they first come out. Up until this time, I had bought them in hardback because I thought they were charming, funny, ironic, believable. However, now I think that since the driving the truck incident, they have become formulaic. A murder happens, the humans are clueless, the animals figure it out, we discuss the problems and joys of Virginia horselife, Harry's life is threatened, the animals help save her. Yadda, yadda, yadda. Sometimes if something ain't broke you don't fix it. However, these books are starting to sound all the same and I think that something needs to be done. Kill off a main character, marry somebody off, do something to liven up the pace, change things out. The animals being wrong about something would be nice for a change. I'd like to see something new happen in the next book. Don't get me wrong. The series is a good read but you gotta have change and interest and these characters are stuck in a rut.Also, I think the author is milking as much money out of the franchise as possible. The letters that the "cat" writes at the end of the book are getting longer and more self-serving as each volume comes out. "Mom" gets ripped off and some kind person sends her designer blouses made to her special pattern. We are supposed to believe and care that the author is so "poor" and giving to needy animals like she doesn't make money off these books. These letters added to the end of the book are just too cutesy for words. The fiction lies within the book itself and its possible (although sometimes just barely) to suspend our disbelief and enjoy the story but to continue the fiction beyond the confines of the story is patronizing to the reader. Like a cat can type.
Rating:
Summary: At it again . . .
Review: Harry, Tee-Tucker, Pewter and Mrs. Murphy are at it again, and I love it. The hunt of the foxes, the antics of the barn owl, the horsey conversations, the resident possum and, oh! those orange-cinnamon muffins, just take me away from it all. I so look forward to the drawings scattered among the story to pull me back to the story also. Thank you for another wonderful adventure in Crozett!
Rating:
Summary: A sucker for this series
Review: I admit that I am a sucker for this clean and wholesome series (strange words for murder mysteries!). I like knowing that I will not be offended by anything in these books. This time, the murder mystery kept me guessing, but I have to admit that the animal conversations are wearing very, very thin.
Rating:
Summary: A sucker for this series
Review: I admit that I am a sucker for this clean and wholesome series (strange words for murder mysteries!). I like knowing that I will not be offended by anything in these books. This time, the murder mystery kept me guessing, but I have to admit that the animal conversations are wearing very, very thin.
Rating: 
Summary: Rita Mae and Sneaky Pie have done it again!!
Review: I could not put this book down. From the first line of the book it was a page turner. I love the concern that Mrs. Murphy, Tucker and Pewter show to Harry. They mother her and cannot understand why she is doing the opposite of what she should be doing. Tucker is so loyal and sweet; Mrs. Murphy is wise beyond belief and Pewter is just hilarious.
Rating:
Summary: Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, Pewter and Harry have done it again
Review: I just can't get enough of these very enjoyable mysteries. Everytime I open another Mrs. Murphy Mystery, I feel like I'm going home to Crozet!
Rating:
Summary: Mrs. Murphy, Tucker, Pewter and Harry have done it again
Review: I just can't get enough of these very enjoyable mysteries. Everytime I open another Mrs. Murphy Mystery, I feel like I'm going home to Crozet!
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother picking this one up.
Review: I've read and loved the Sneaky Pie mysteries for years, but had fallen 2 books behind when I picked up Pawing Through the Past and Claws and Effect. Now, I realize I'm in a specialized area and am nitpicking this book because of my personal experiences, but this book really bugged me. Through 7 books we've been exposed to "tiny" Crozet, Virginia (in one book, its population was given as 1700 people). But here we are supposed to believe it has a world-class teaching hospital which has a pediatric intensive care unit (Tussie Logan at one point refers to a child from Guatemala she's taking care of), specialists like orthopedic surgeons (Buxton, "one of the leading knee specialists in the country"!)and worst, A TRANSPLANT CENTER!!! I work in a hospital in a city of 500,000 people, and none of our 5 hospitals has a transplant center (there's only one in the state, in the capital city). I came from a city of 20,000 which has a 25-bed hospital, with a usual census of 5-10 patients! Harry speculates that 3 people with healthy organs die per week at Crozet Hospital (remember, a town of 1700 people). It just goes on and on! I am disappointed that Ms. Brown has such a low opinion of her readers (or that she doesn't feel it's necessary to at least make these mysteries minimally realistic because they're making her millions). If you need to read this one to complete the series, do it. If you're starting here, it's obvious to me Ms. Brown is just grinding these stories out because she has a successful franchise. Go back and read the first books, they're fun and, while not totally believable, at least not ludicrous. We'll see how Catch as Cat Can goes... I may have to give them up.
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