When small items disappear throughout the town, the residents are up in arms! Pickax has seldom fallen victim to "big city" crimes, particularly during the holiday season. But after the bridge club's money is stolen, the townspeople decide that there is more to this mystery. The rash of petty thievery started when banker Willard Carmichael and his much younger (and flashier) wife, Danielle, moved to Pickax from Down Below. Along with their big-city lifestyle, Willard brought plans to restore the Victorian houses on Gingerbread Alley (fondly known as Pleasant Street). Unfortunately, Willard is murdered in an apparent mugging Down Below. When a local man is accused of the thievery, newspaper columnist Jim Qwilleran has serious questions about the recent crimes plaguing Pickax. For one thing, Danielle's cousin Carter Lee seems too eager to pick up where Willard left off in the restoration project. When he begins to romance wealthy widow Lynette Duncan, things really go awry. It's up to Qwill, Koko and Yum Yum to set the town right and bring the guilty party to justice before both the Duncan family fortune and Pickax are destroyed by greed. Lillian Jackson Braun never seems to run out of ideas for her popular series of mysteries featuring journalist Jim Qwilleran and his feline cohort, Koko. In this latest, The Cat Who Tailed A Thief , Koko again exhibits his preternatural intelligence by trying to tip off Qwilleran to important clues to a murder. That Qwilleran is not possessed of the same mental acuity as his cat is what makes this series work. Braun may not be noted for refined prose, perceptive characterizations, or stunningly original plots, but what she does do well is cats. Fans of felines in general and Koko in particular will find this book, the 19th in the Qwilleran series, almost as irresistible as, well, catnip. Some would even say it's purr-fect. Winter in Moose County, 400 miles north of everywhere, begins with a disagreement between the local weatherman, who predicts a normal arctic winter, and the fuzzy caterpillar, whose behavior forecasts abnormally mild conditions. (The latter wins when grandiose plans for an Ice Festival are flooded out by an unprecedented mid-February thaw.) The residents of Pickax are even more concerned, however, with a series of petty larcenies and the Pleasant Street historic houses restoration project. It's up to the town's leading citizen--semiretired journalist/philanthropist Jim Qwilleran, assisted by his Siamese sleuths Koko and Yum Yum, to discover the connection between these events and two murders committed Down Below. While curious about the identities of the thief and the murderer, readers will be equally interested in Qwill's sartorial and gustatory adventures (wearing full Highland regalia as best man at a Scottish wedding and sharing librarian Polly Duncan's 17 low-cal recipes for flattened chicken breast), his inquiry into the naming of cats, and his compilation of a collection of Short and Tall Tales of early days, several of which are "transcribed verbatim." There are a few new characters in this nineteenth Braun cat mystery, including a pet housefly called Mosca, but most will be well known to the author's deservedly large following. As always, literate and entertaining. Barbara Duree Yet another chapter in the saccharine saga of Pickax, a far northern town where bad things keep happening to good people (The Cat Who Said Cheese, 1996, etc.). The town's moving spirit is zillionaire Jim Qwilleran, who, accompanied by prescient cats Koko and Yum-Yum, has just moved for the winter months into a condo in Indian Village. Jim's column in the Moose County Something puts him in the center of Pickax's social scene, currently abuzz over Danielle, bride of new banker Willard Carmichael. Danielle's shrill persona and vulgar style mark her as a town misfit. That doesn't apply to her visiting cousin Carter Lee, a low-key, personable architect much interested in Pleasant Street's row of old mansions, which he wants to restore and have placed in the Historic Register. There's also gossip about a recent series of large thefts. All this gives way to shock when banker Carmichael, on a business trip to Detroit, is mugged and fatally shot. Danielle is soon back in circulation and Carter Lee continues to press his preservation scheme, at the same time courting Lynette, the 40ish, never married sister-in-law of Jim Qwilleran's best friend, Polly Duncan. Jim, in full Scots dress, is best man at the wedding. News from New Orleans of Lynette's death (of gastrointestinal complications) starts signals flying from Koko and Yum-Yum, prompting Jim to get to the bottom of it all. Dolls, dirks, dowsers, and kilts, along with folklore and cat lore--all clutter the story, and the murder puzzle, minus suspense or surprise, barely emerges from the flow. Die-hard cat and cozy fans may cheer. For others, a benign waste of time. (Literary Guild alternate; Mystery Guild main selection) --