In the mood for a “cozy mystery” book with a cat as a protagonist, however looking through my options on Amazon none of them seem to be what I want.
Has to star a normal cat. The cat can “think” but I don’t want it to star an anthropomorphic cat or a cat who can vocally talk to a human.
Cat has to be main character, don’t want it where it’s labeled as a cat mystery series but there’s actually a human behind the cat who does all the detective work.
Preferably on Audible or Kindle since I have free Kindle and audible credits there already.
I read most of these over the years (there are 29 of them). But after Braun died in 2011, someone(s) else wrote them and they really went off the rails. I finally gave them up but there are still close to a couple dozen that are highly entertaining. These are told from the human’s perspective. His cats are smart and he trusts their instincts and they invariably lead him to the killer.
Closer to what you are looking for might be the Midnight Louie mysteries by Carole Nelson Douglas. There are 28 of them. The stories are told from the cat Louie’s perspective. He fancies himself a hardboiled detective and “helps” his owner investigate crimes in Las Vegas. This series also suffered in the end when the author apparently decided she didn’t need an editor. I did finish this one because there was an underlying story throughout the series and I wanted to know how it ended. But the majority of the series was a lot of fun.
And, I dare say, much better quality than any of the genre “Cozies where the pet is the narrator”.
Now, there are some good “Animal helps solve crime or just accompany the sleuth” books. David Rosenfelt got involved in dog rescue and his taut thrillers immediately changed to “Plucky lawyer and dedicated dog solve crimes.” They’re well-written and the audiobooks are excellently read (as is the Cat Who books… I much prefer George Guidell’s perfect voice for Jim Qwilleran to the print versions).
But I’ve read some horrible books like “I’m a cat who has no patience for my human, but for some reason I care intensely about this murder…” Pfft, it’s hard to buy a cat protagonist who would care about anything that much… and wouldn’t wander away in the middle of the book for a couple of chapters.
My first thought were Felidae, which was translated from German into english and pretty much invented the genre in 1989. It appears the author has gone all right wing nowadays, so it becomes hard to find now but none of that sort of nonsense is in the original first book.