The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts

The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts is the tenth Cat Who mystery from Lilian Jackson Braun, published in 1990. The ghosts of the title refer to the various local Pickax legends about haunted properties and the wider folk tradition of supernatural stories that the small Moose County community has been telling about itself for generations. The case develops around a property that the local tradition has marked as haunted, with the death of a longtime local resident slowly revealing connections to the wider supernatural folklore that the community has been carrying.

Koko’s particular involvement in the case takes the form of his apparent communication with whatever ghostly presences the property’s history has produced, with the cat’s characteristic noticing of small details continuing to drive Qwill toward the eventual investigation. Braun handles the supernatural element with her characteristic light touch, leaving the reader uncertain whether the apparent ghostly phenomena are genuine supernatural events or whether more conventional explanations are available for everything that the case appears to involve.

Braun’s plotting is gentle by mystery standards. Violence happens off the page. Suspects are usually pleasant people with reasons to be uncomfortable rather than dangerous criminals with motives to kill. The pleasure of a Cat Who book is the slow accumulation of detail, the warm sense of place, and the quiet humor of Qwill’s observations on whatever situation he has been pulled into.

For longtime Cat Who fans, this is one of the more atmospheric middle period entries. For new readers, starting with The Cat Who Could Read Backwards is the better entry point.