Wish You Were Here (1990)
These books are the perfect antitdote to the COVID year. So far I’ve read 25 of the books (in order) and have laughed through each one. One doesn’t necessarily need to love animals to enjoy the books, but if you do love animals, it makes each one more delightful.
The premise is that a woman by the name of Harry Haristeen owns her deceased parents’ farm in rural Virginia. Her roots in the area go back to pre-revolutionary times. She lives in her farmhouse with two cats and a dog (Mrs. Murphy, Pewter, and Tucker). Harry also has horses and there’s an owl, opossum and black snake that live in the barn. The animals can all talk with each other and are quite frustrated that the humans cannot understand what is being said. The town, Crozet, is small and beautifully situated in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Harry has a gift/curse for getting in the middle of murders that happen in and around Crozet. The animals quite often help her solve the crimes, but it takes so much effort on their part because their human has poor eyesight, is slow, and can’t hear well at all (compared with them).
Sneaky Pie (the author’s cat) and Rita Mae Brown have a gift for description and character development. I can see the sunrises and smell the seasons in this part of the country. Harry and the rest of the humans are well developed and I look forward to learning what each has been up to since the last book.
Books in the Series
Rest in Pieces (1993)
Murder at Monticello (1994)
Pay Dirt
(1995)
Murder, She Meowed (1996)
Murder on the Prowl (1998)
Cat on the Scent (1999)
Pawing Through the Past (2000)
Claws and Effect (2001)
Catch as Cat Can (2002)
The Tail of the Tip-Off (2003)
Whisker of Evil (2004)
Cat’s Eyewitness (2005)
Sour Puss
(2006)
Puss ‘n Cahoots (2007)
The Purrfect Murder (2008)
Santa Clawed (2008)
Cat of the Century (2010)
Hiss of Death (2011)
The Big Cat Nap (2012)
Sneaky Pie for President (2012)
The Litter of the Law (2013)
Nine Lives to Die (2014)
Tail Gait
(2015)
Tall Tail
(2016)
A Hiss Before Dying (2017)
Probable Claws (2018)
Whiskers in the Dark (2019)
Claws for Alarm (July 2021)
Sneaky Pie’s Cookbook
for Mystery Lovers (1999)