The Cat's Meow

Rating:
Summary: Anyone familiar with Chicago should really enjoy this
Review: This is a quick read mystery involving an old priest who has served most of his life at a church slated for closing (as soon as the old guy dies). His cat Ignatius dies suddenly, and then some odd things start to happening. Is the old priest losing it, or is there really something odd -- like black masses -- going on in the church at night. A sewer worker who is well-connected in the old Democratic Machine (the political organization that ran -- and probably still does -- Chicago for years) starts poking around in this. He thinks maybe it has something to do with the high school adjoining the church (kids' pranks? something involving the school's staff?) or maybe something to do with the priest's housekeeper or maybe the well-known fence he sees at the rectory isn't really there because he's getting instruction in the Catholic faith. Set in a particularly cold spell, the author convincingly creates a Chicago atmosphere -- complete with that Southside Irish Chicago accent (and yet spelling each word correctly -- but you could nevertheless hear someone speaking Chicago-ese).

I think what I liked best was the way the author created a sense of place through the characters, their dialogue, and the descriptions of Chicago. This is a mystery that could be read in one evening -- briskly plotted and relatively short.