We lost our beloved friend Mr. Dinger, the cat, a couple of years back. We still miss him. Our Russian Blues, Boris and Natasha, are awesome friends, too, but Mr. Dinger was special. He even wrote a blog for one of my book releases. So, in memoriam, I’m reposting Mr. Dinger’s post from back in 2013.

Notes From the Cat Box

Posted on November 27, 2013 by Max

Max is busy writing today, so we have a guest blogger.  His name is Erwin Schrodinger the Cat, or Mr. Dinger for short.  

Notes from the Cat Box 

November 27, 2013

My pet human, Max, is pretty weird.  Selfish, too.  I mean, he wanted to sleep this morning at 5 AM when I wanted petted.  Then he fed me the wrong cat food.  I just had the salmon with gravy yesterday.  What was he thinking?  When I showed my displeasure by trying to trip him on the stairs, all he did was swear at me.  I guess he learned those words in the navy.  Certainly, no proper cat would even think such obscenities.

Anyway, right now he’s shut up in his office working on the next chapter of his latest novel, Timekeepers.  Or so he says.  Speaking cat-to-reader, I think he’s playing solitaire.  But he won’t ever let me in his sanctum, so who’s to say what he’s really doing in there?

He did spend some time petting me this morning before turning into a solitaire-playing hermit, but it turns out he wanted a favor.  It seems his novel Murder Me Tender released today, and he says he’s too busy to blog about it.  He wants me to do it!  I mean, it’s not like I don’t have a dozen better things to do.  Like lying in the sun.  And sleeping. Oh, and pooping.  Okay, so I’ve only got three better things to do.  Still, he did pet me this morning, so I guess I owe him something.

He thoughtfully left his notebook computer open on his nightstand, with the electronic edition of his book right there for me.  The first thing that I noticed was the hunky guy on the cover.  Of course there’s a hunky guy on the cover.  This is Max’s novel, right?  I’d never do anything as shallow and human-like as judge a book by its cover, but I’ve got admit I can see where certain of Max’s species might be attracted by this guy.

The next thing I noticed as I pawed through the pages were the chapter titles: they are all song titles.  Really old song titles. Things like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and “Don’t Know Much About Algebra.”   I mean, I know when Max passed his PhD comprehensive exam in algebra he nailed his copy of Rotman’s An Introduction to the Theory of Groups shut, so he probably really doesn’t know anything about algebra.  But what’s with that for a chapter title?  Like I said, it seems it’s always about him.  Instead of me.

Supposedly, Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca inspired this novel.  I looked, though, and I couldn’t find Mrs. Danvers or Mandalay anywhere.  There’s a big mansion in southwestern Wisconsin, and an estate manager named Daniels, but that’s not the same.  Oh, there’s a May-December romance, too.  Well, it’s really more of a May-August romance, between Brandon and Rick, the estate’s owner.  I did notice that Brandon’s the only character who has no last name, kind of like the nameless narrator of Rebecca.  He’s pretty cute and whip-smart, but Rick’s a bit of a nebbish, like de Winter in Rebecca.  Who knows what Brandon sees in him.  My favorite character was Rick’s sister-in-law and ex-fiancé, Sandra. She cracked me up. I know there was no one like that in du Maurier’s novel.

The mystery had some twists that would make a nice CSI episode. Wait, I think something like this was in a CSI episode.  Brandon even mentions it.  In fact, it was in an old Columbo episode before that.  We felines have excellent memories. We’re smart too.  Smarter than Brandon, or at least we’re brighter than Max. After all, that doesn’t take all that many smarts. Anyway, I saw through this from the very start.  In fact, I wrote down the name of the murderer at the end of chapter one, and I was right!     So there, Mr. Smarty-Pants Author.

My biggest complaint about this book is that it doesn’t have any cats in it.  Who wants to read a book with no felines? There’s this stupid dog who drools and sniffs around.  If Max has time to write about dogs, why doesn’t he feature a handsome Abyssinian like me?  That would be way more interesting.

Despite the fact that it’s got no cats, I liked this book.  Tell Max I said so if you see him.  Maybe he’ll give me some lobster next time he feeds me.

Erwin Schrodinger the Cat

AKA Mr. Dinger

Murder Me Tender is available from Purple Sword Publications.