Not a bad start to a series at all. A protagonist that's an investigative reporter. so her questions and sleuthing make sense. A cat with a LOT of personality. A interesting romantic interest with chemistry.

My biggest gripe:
This is a multi award winning reporter who covered the crime beat in Chicago and wrote stories about the mob. Yet when her cat kicks out three scrabble tiles: I, F, and B right after a run-in with the detective, she comes up with "FIB". This happens a couple of times and "FIB" is what she clings too. COME ON... Then the cat kicks out G, T, V and O; she puts that together as "Govt" but still can't come up with FBI?!?! Nothing like giving us an accomplished, smart heroine and making her stupid.

The mystery was pretty good and I didn't guess the villian although I definitely saw what was behind it early on. I'll happily read the second book in the series, though, as I thought it was pretty well-written. ( )

[b:The Thin Man|80616|The Thin Man|Dashiell Hammett|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1321111302s/80616.jpg|1336952] by Dashiell Hammett is a favorite book and the series of movies as well, so when I saw the title of this series I knew I had to give it a try. LoTempio does a good job writing a smart heroine that runs a sandwich shop inherited from her mother. Unlike many mysteries where the non professional detective amazingly solves crimes on the side. Nora Charles has a BA in journalism and years of experience writing a crime column for a Chicago paper.

What doesn't make a lot of sense however is that the California town where the crimes are committed are actually linked back to Chicago, I found that to be to much of a coincidence. The other problem was that all her old Chicago sources had plenty of information on a small city in CA, that seemed far fetched.

It was a fun read, and I'll read the next one as well. ( )

loved this cozy mystery so much that I added the other two books in this series to my wish list. Long ago, I used to watch the Thin Man movies in the afternoons and remember buying this book because of the connections. I pictured Nora Charles in the book looking like Myrna Loy.

The cat which is a tuxedo cat. They are short hairs and are known for their exceptional intelligence. The Nick in this book is overweight beautiful tuxedo cat. I have had one in the past, my son named her Happy Day. I tend to favor dogs the most but Happy Day convinced me that she had way above cat intelligence and she even related to me differently than other cats I have had. Happy Day went out of her way to communicate to me. If I have another cat, I will want a tuxedo cat.

Nick in this book seems to be very perceptive and attentive to Nora. That reminded me so much of Happy Day. I think the author knows like I know that these cats are special.

The mystery was easy for me to follow and her Tarot loving friend loved Nick's handsome coat and added humor to the tale and the food made by Nora's sandwich shop made me hungry. I would love to try the recipe in the back of the book. ( )

When Nora Charles returns home to run Hot Bread, her family's deli, she also opts to write for an online magazine - but is tired of mediocre columns and wants to write something important. But she doesn't realize that something important might just fall into her lap...

While she's mulling over the fact that her mother's friend Lola Grainger drowned in a boating accident, she also knows that Lola was deathly afraid of water and never would have taken a dinghy into it, especially late at night. But she has no proof, at least until Nick shows up.

Nick is a tuxedo cat who appears outside her door one day, and when her best friend Chantal, who also read the Tarot, tells her that Nick is meant to be with her, Nora reluctantly agrees to take him until she can find his owner.

But after digging around she discovers that his owner was a private investigator, Nick Atkins, who disappeared after being hired to find out if Lola's death was deliberate. She decides it's a sign, and goes on to investigate herself. In doing so she contacts the police for information and meets Detective Daniel Corleone, who is temporarily filling in for the detective who was on the case, although he seems to know quite a bit about it.

The more that Nora finds out it seems the more Daniel knows, and if she's not careful, she might run into enough trouble to get herself killed...

I really liked the premise of the book - I absolutely love classic films (including The Thin Man) so this was a big plus for me; I love Hammett's books, and I love cats. Unfortunately, while the book was decent, it didn't live up to the premise. I do have to say that after reading it however, I got the feeling that Nick is also holding the spirit of Nick Atkins, and that's why he's able to help Nora so much. Why? Because Nora mentions the part about the white streak in his fur behind his ear, and later in the book Ollie (his partner) also mentions it, stating he never noticed it before now...probably because it wasn't there. Once you hear about the things Nick does, it makes more sense in the book.

Saying that, I didn't really care for Nora. She didn't seem too bright. Nick gives her three letters from a Scrabble game - which can only make two words - and she chooses the wrong one; she doesn't even rearrange them to get the correct one. Then, she's extremely rude to people and refuses to share information with Corleone, even though he's the officer and she's a civilian. She actually gets mad when he tells her that he doesn't have to share info with her! He's right - he doesn't.

Not to mention she goes to Lola's husband's company under the guise of checking on a catering contract then just blatantly questions Patti about the murder. Yeah, sure, that made sense. Did Patti get suspicious? Not really. Did she have Nora escorted out? Nope.

She just wasn't terribly likable. She supposedly was an award-winning crime reporter, yet treated the investigation clumsily and got goo-goo eyed every time she saw Corleone. She lied to him repeatedly, and I would think a crime reporter would want to stay on the good side of law enforcement, but she didn't seem to care. Crime reporters are very careful about their sources of information, but she didn't list the police in this at all; she pretty much treated him as the enemy.

I also didn't like how she treated Nick at first. You can tell a lot about people by the way they treat animals, especially cats and dogs. And she didn't want anything to do with him, which tells me she's selfish and self-centered. It wasn't until she discovered that he could help with her investigation that she was interested in him, but it didn't matter, because she didn't take any of his "warnings" to heart.

There were little inconsistencies - one being that Ollie said he was allergic to cats and had to take antihistamines, yet when he rubbed Nick under the ear he didn't sneeze. So he had the foresight to take one before he visited? Probably not. And it was never explained why he was still a PI if he wasn't doing well, and was he a bad PI so he didn't get cases? I rather liked Ollie and would have liked it if this was explored more. At the last, I also wondered how much money Hot Bread actually made if they're only open for lunch. Most delicatessens stay open all day - she'd have to have an awful lot of customers to make a decent living only being open for a few hours a day.

All in all, this wasn't a great book, but it wasn't a bad book, either. It was a decent read if a bit of a fluff; and I would like to see in the next book that Nora is a little more tuned into Nick (and why he's such a special cat); I would like to see more of Ollie, and see Nora be a little more likable person. It has potential. ( )

A fun new cozy mystery series with sleuth Nora and feline investigator Nick. ( )