The Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries - Book Series Review

The Black Cat Bookshop Mysteries are a delightful series of quirky detective novels by Ali Brandon. Ali Brandon is one of several pen names for Diane A.S. Stuckart, and whatever you know her as, I highly recommend you check out this series as soon as possible.

This series follows the accidental adventures of Darla Pettistone and her cat Hamlet. Darla resides in and owns Pettistone’s Fine Books, a bookshop in New York which was previously owned by Darla’s late Great-Aunt Dee, who had adopted Hamlet into the family and into the bookshop. Along with Hamlet, Darla also inherited Professor James T. James, who works in the shop, and Jake Martelli, a friend and ex-cop who lives in the garden apartment beneath the bookshop, along with a multitude of friends and acquaintances in the form of neighbors and other business owners in the area. Darla and her friends have a knack for getting wrapped up in mysteries, and Hamlet has an uncanny gift for solving mysteries and helping his human friends figure out what has happened.

‘Double Booked for Death’ is the first book in the series. In it, Darla, Hamlet, and friends, find themselves attempting to solve a murder when a famous author who was doing a signing at the bookshop is found dead in the midst of the event. This first book gives the reader a delicious taste of the shenanigans that are ever-present throughout the other five books in the series.

Overall, these six books are chock full of adventure, friendship, and delightfully light and fun writing. I started reading these books after graduating from college, because I was looking for something easy-going to read after reading from textbooks for four years. I found these books to be the exact escape that I needed, and I still enjoy going back to them when I need to escape from reality for a while. If you are a fan of mysteries, cats, or just solidly enjoyable literature, you should definitely give this series a chance.