21st June 2025

The third Conrad adventure sees our human and feline heroes visiting Manchester, where there’s a lot going on.

Three or four plot lines collide to bring this together, one of them darker and more brutal than I was really looking for in this series, which I’d enjoyed because of the more lighter nature of the mystery in book one.

The narrative remains fun, with lots of in-jokes, although I can’t tell if we’re close to reaching the line with some of them where they are becoming cliches rather than punchlines.

I think though that, like with the second book, I’d love to see Conrad take a bit more of a key role. He steps up in a few places in this novel, but it feels like he’s become more of a gimmick than actually being necessary to the plot.

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24th October 2024

Conrad is back, as he comes along to visit an old friend of Lulu ahead of a big birthday party. Naturally, this being a cosy crime story, things don’t all go to plan, and they have more murders to investigate.

The narrative is as compelling and easy to read as the first book, and once again I stormed through it in about 24 hours. This is one of the best things about these stories, how smoothly they flow.

The plot feels a bit more like a classic murder mystery though, big country house, locked room type mystery, interrogating suspects, learning about their histories. And I’m not sure how much Conrad’s involvement particularly helped, beyond a couple of scenes.

All said though, very enjoyable, and I’ll be back for book three once it’s in paperback.

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28th April 2024

This was a charity shop purchase which I’m absolutely delighted by.

I was caught totally off guard right away when the book went somewhere so different to what I was expecting, and I was hooked.

I read the entire book in 24 hours, it’s so well done, easy to read, funny, and with a plot that draws you forward at a great pace.

There a tough line with a plot like this where the crime is so personal to the main character, and Shearer treads this excellently, balancing the serious nature of the crime with the lighthearted presentation of the interaction between the two main characters.

Despite the brevity, the running gags entertained me every chapter. I’m definitely going to need to read the sequel soon.

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