Scratch the Surface is gloriously silly. I laughed and giggled and hee-hawed while reading this book. I have told every person I can think of about it and even my W.E.B.-Griffin-reading, Koko-who?- husband thinks it sounds like fun and has dibs on my copy. I loved way the main character, Felicity Pride, made everything a scene in an upcoming book and used the "if this were a novel then..." approach to her investigation, all the while bumbling and stumbling into important clues and finally the murderer.

I do not mean to infer that by being silly this book is in any way inferior. Satire is very difficult to write and not be over the top. Good satire is almost impossible. This one is good.

Felicity is a well-established author of a mystery series starring two cats. She has never owned a cat, but her fans think that she is cat-less because she still mourns her beloved and non-existent Morris. Her humanitarian efforts on behalf of Edith and Brigitte (Brizh-eet), the two Chartreux belonging to the dead man in her vestibule, set her up for a lot of the fun. There are tangential comparisons to be made between this book and other published cat mysteries, and parallels are easily drawn for comedy's sake. The cats talk between themselves like Midnight Louie, but the voice and thoughts belong to a cat, as opposed to Sam Spade and his dame. One of the cats even communicates a clue to her mistress, although unlike dignified and purposeful Koko, Brigitte is a clueless little thief on four paws.

Occam's razor: "The simpler the explanation, the better"; ergo if it sounds like Ms. Conant is poking fun at cat mysteries and their authors, she is. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.