By Marian Babson

For such a charming cozy premise, this mystery is surprisingly grim and nasty, which is not necessarily a pan but definitely a surprise. Within the first ten pages, 11-year-old Robin has been dared to steal a neighbor’s prized cat but while in the house, witnesses the husband brutally beat his wife to death. I guess I’d expected more of a ‘closed door’ mystery, where all the violence is off-screen so to speak, but it’s really quite explicit. We continue to get intermittent chapters from the husband’s unhinged viewpoint, which are unpleasant and I imagine would be very triggering to anyone experienced in any sort of domestic abuse situation.

At the same time, Robin is staying with his aunt and her less violent, but still verbally abusive boyfriend, and honestly, this novel is not very generous to any sort of post-pubescent male characters. Individual scenes are darkly funny, but the overall situation is grim enough that it is hard to fully enjoy the mystery. Robin is, at best, severely neglected by the variety of self-centered adults around him, with his only real comfort and companion being this cat that he has successfully smuggled out of the murder house.

All the adults are fairly useless in general, with the only real support and help coming from other children and teens. The several divergent plot strands come together in a neat (and fairly quick, at less than 200 pages) ending, and like any decent cozy, it all concludes satisfactorily, though disconcertingly so, considering everything everyone has been through.