Book Review: Gone but Not Furgotten by Cate Conte (Cat Café Mysteries #6)

Stars: 3 out of 5

Pros: Book really gels in the second half

Cons: The first half wanders quite a bit

The Bottom Line:

When cat hoarder dies

Maddie rescues and questions

Sadly, uneven

Tail of Two Halves

Normally, I enjoy the Cat Café Mysteries.  The island setting is fun and the cats are cute.  So, I was looking forward to Gone but Not Furgotten when I sat down to read it.

It’s summer, so tourists are flooding Daybreak Island, and things are busy at JJ’s House of Purrs, the cat café that Maddie James has opened in part of her grandfather’s house.  However, when her friend Cass Hendricks mentions a potential cat hoarding situation in another part of the island, Maddie is quick to agree to go with him to figure out how to help.

When the two arrive, they discover Laurel’s body at the bottom of her stairs.  Naturally, the police assume that one of Laurel’s cats tripped her.  Maddie thinks there is something else going on, especially with a few things she doesn’t quite think are right at the crime scene.  Can she rescue the cats and figure out what is going on?

This book is easily divisible in half.  The first half is weak.  The focus here is on the rescuing the cats.  Yes, being in Laurel’s house does give Maddie a chance to collect a few clues, but they are few and far between.

There was a lot of talk about how horrible the hoarding situation was for the cats.  Now, I get that the author is a big advocate for animals.  And the situation was truly heartbreaking.   However, I felt like some of the characters went overboard in their reaction to things.  Honestly, it made some of them not very likeable.  This includes Maddie in a couple of scenes.

Fortunately, the book gets better as we head into the second half.  That’s when the mystery really kicks into high gear.  Yes, the little we learned in the first half comes into play here, although I’m not sure all of it paid off.  I can see a justification for what was found early on, but it wasn’t explicit in the book.  Still, I got caught in the action and the revelations that Maddie was uncovering.  The suspects kept me engaged as well.

We spent more time with some of the other regulars in the series in the second half, and I enjoyed that as always.  Grandpa Leo especially is a wonderful character, and he and Maddie make a fantastic team as they track down clues.  Unfortunately, I did feel like that a key bit of character development was rushed.

Based on what I am seeing, fans of the series loved this installment, so I am the outlier here.  If you’ve already met Maddie, pick up Gone but Not Furgotten.  If you haven’t started this series yet, I suggest you start with an earlier, stronger book in the series.

Make an appointment for the rest of the Cat Café Mysteries.