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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Eminently well written if a little weak in actual story, 26 Oct 2001
By A Customer
The second in a series of books based around former crime reporter Jim Qwilleran's uneasy move into the world of art and design for a new paper finds him embroiled in a series of thefts linked to his articles. Aided by his Siamese cat Koko, a unique and intelligent animal, Qwilleran attempts to solve the mystery of a theft of a Jade collection. Even as he tries to solve this case to clear the papers good name he encounters a worse crime in the murder of a charismatic businessman with a shady past.
Lilian Jackson Braun certainly writes as well as any author I've read but her actual story lines can sometimes be a little weak. The characters are well formed and largely likeable although if you don't care for cats (I believe there are such people) you may find your attention wandering. However the main of this book is the actual quality of the writing which comes as a refreshing change from the dire and unreadable prose of so many current books.
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Crime reporter transferred to interior decorating beat, 10 Jun 2006
When I first read this mystery, it was the second of a 3-volume series, the last of which had appeared in 1968. Only with the 4th book, THE CAT WHO SAW RED (1986), did the series take off into its at-least-1-book-a-year mode, and only with the 5th, THE CAT WHO PLAYED BRAHMS, did Braun introduce Qwill to Moose County.
THE CAT WHO ATE DANISH MODERN was the first Qwilleran book I ever read, and although it's best to begin with book 1, THE CAT WHO COULD READ BACKWARDS, I can testify that you won't be lost if you pick this up first instead, nor will you spoil the solution of the previous book.
Qwill is the type who'd probably think of himself as a dog person if he weren't a city dweller, but after the death of his landlord, he acquired custody of his landlord's closest companion: Kao K'o Kung, a Siamese familiarly known as Koko. (The original hardcover dustjacket was graced with a photograph of his namesake: the author's feline companion.) The other consequences of his landlord's death led to one of Qwill's four problems at the opening of the story: 1) he has to find a new place to live, 2) he wants to be in the Daily Fluxion's city room rather than on the art beat, 3) no current girlfriend, and 4) moths are eating up all his ties - so he runs the risk of being homeless, jobless, womanless, and tieless all at once. (Hey, I didn't say this was Shakespearean tragedy.)
Before Qwill can request a transfer from the managing editor, he's informed that a change of assignment is already lined up: the FLUXION is trying to divert advertising revenue from magazines to their own coffers, and so a new Sunday supplement is coming online, and Qwill will be in charge of its features. The catch? The home furnishing industry is making the advertising experiment - so the Sunday magazine, GRACIOUS ABODES, covers the interior decorating beat. Qwill's horrified reaction is softened since the transfer includes a promotion and raise. Odd Bunsen, the Flux's daredevil photographer, is slower to overcome his resentment at his own transfer.
Up through book 4, this was the standard opening move in a Qwill story: transfer the poor devil from his current assignment to some weird beat as far from the City Room as a veteran crime reporter could imagine, and throw him in at the deep end. As with his previous assignment to the art beat, he finds the professional rivalries unexpectedly interesting.
Consider Lyke and Starkweather, for instance - Starkweather (a rather bland middle-aged executive) handles the business end while Lyke handles clients and the actual decoration jobs. Lyke's charismatic, but the depths beneath his surface charm are somewhat murky. He butters people up left and right, then sneers at them for taking him seriously. His childhood friendship - back before he moved uptown and changed his name - with Jack Baker ended acrimoniously after Jack saved his pennies, went to the Sorbonne, then returned to town as "Jacques Boulonger", the Duxburys' decorator "from Paris". (Jack's background isn't really secret, but his society clients wouldn't like to admit that far from being an exotic novelty, he's a self-made African-American from their own city.) Jack even rubbed in his success at having taken away Lyke's old money clients by moving into the Villa Verandah, where Lyke lives, but in a nicer apartment on a higher floor. :) Lyke does well enough, though, with the new money clients out in Lost Lake Hills.
By chance, Qwill starts with Lyke when seeking a big society name for the cover of GRACIOUS ABODES' first issue, and thus draws the Taits. At first Mrs. Tait's sharp tongue seems the worst feature of the household, and Tait's obsession with his jade collection the oddest. Then the morning after the first issue of Gracious Abodes hits the street, Tait's jade collection is stolen, his wife is dead of a heart attack, and the police - and the FLUXION's competitor, the MORNING RAMPAGE - are asking why the Flux seems to be printing blueprints for burglary. (One of the elements dating the story is the FLUXION's policy of always printing names and addresses, but as you can see, its logical consequences come home to roost.)
Each of the first few editions of GRACIOUS ABODES is plagued by a different catastrophe, and Qwill faces reassignment to the church editor's beat if he can't break the jinx. Are some or all of the incidents related - and if so, who's behind them?
I recommend the unabridged audio read by George Guidall over the book on its own, although I enjoy that too. Scenes like Odd Bunsen's drunken pursuit of Koko across the balconies of the Villa Verandah must be heard to be appreciated fully. :)
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4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
No sex please, I'm British!, 3 May 2003
If you like your murder mysteries with buckets of blood, detailed forensics, steamy sex and a hardboiled detective who curses to high heaven - read no further! This is not the book for you."The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern" is another in the delightful "The Cat Who ..." series by Lilian Jackson Braun, featuring a perfect gentleman Jim Qwilleran as its sleuth - alovely old fashioned word for a lovely old fashioned man. It follows the pattern of all the other books in the series - and is none the worse for that. The plot is almost immaterial. It's just so good to relax in a book where you learn interesting things about Siamese cats, out of the way American towns and their eccentrics residents and customs. If you've read her stuff before, you'll know exactly what you're getting and it's like slippig into a pair of well worn slippers.
But what's wrong with that? If "Heartbeat" is comfortable television viewing, then "The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern" is the audio murder mystery equivalent. Enjoy.
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by Lilian Jackson Braun
by Lilian Jackson Braun
