History Literature / TheCatWhoSeries

* ScaryStingingSwarm: This book has an ExitPursuedByABear where [[spoiler: the murderer]] is stung to death by bees [[spoiler: because the beekeeper he's coerced into being an accomplice forgot that wool attracted them]].

* EvilMatriach: Margaret apparently is the one who got her sons addicted to luxury only to give them enough to let them keep living the good life -- as long as they do whatever she wants. She didn't think that Fran Brodie was good enough for David, so when Harley's in prison for negligent homicide, she encouraged David to marry Jill, thus setting the stage for tragedy.

* EpiphanicPrison: Wealthy parents Nigel and Margret Finch have their twin sons David and Harley in one of these. They addicted the boys to a life of luxury, then give them just enough of an allowance to let them keep living the good life -- as long as they do everything that their parents tell them to do.

* FinancialAbuse: The Fitches, one of the prominent families in Moose County, are said to control their adult children by "giving [the kids] a taste for luxuries but keeping them poor."

* CausticCritic: In the original book, ''The Cat Who Could Read Backwards'', the art critic Mountclemens is very much this. He has managed to offend just about everyone on the art scene in town except for a select few artists he's propping up, but is kept because his columns draw huge readership. His targets include a wealthy donor whose work he describes as "drugstore art". Of a sweet old butcher called "Uncle Waldo", he comments that "age is no substitute for talent". He also targets private collectors who are "less dedicated to art preservation than tax avoidance". Even his full name, George Bonifield Mountclemens III, pisses off some people, as it must be set line-by-line in the type on his byline and he insists on no abbreviations.[[note]]The book was written in the 1960s when all of this still had to be done by hand.[[/note]]

* FurnaceBodyDisposal: In ''The Cat Who Saw Red'', Qwill learns that the murder victim's body was disposed of in a potter's kiln. [[spoiler:It's what created the red "living glaze" on the pots.]]

* SommelierSpeak: Parodied. Qwilleran visits the Press Club, sits down next to Arch Riker and Odd Bunsen, and being permanently off the wagon, orders what is described as his "usual tomato juice." Riker comments that he must be quite the connoisseur of it. In response, Qwilleran runs the glass under his nose, then replies "An unpretentious vintage. Nothing memorable, but it has a naive charm. Unfortunately, the bouquet is masked by the smoke from Mr. Bunsen's cigar. I would guess the tomatoes came from... from Northern Illinois. Obviously a tomato patch near an irrigation ditch, getting the morning sun from the east and the afternoon sun from the west. My palate tells me the tomatoes were picked early in the day--on a Tuesday or Wednesday--by a farmhand wearing a Band-Aid. The Mercurochrome comes through in the aftertaste."

* CloudCuckooLander: Elizabeth Hart sort of appears this way to the natives of Moose County. She's very intelligent, and rather down-to-earth despite her wealthy background, but she's got very different interests than most of the other characters.

* CloudCuckooLanguage: Nino, in the first book. {{Lampshaded}}: "He even speaks a language of his own, but we don't expect conformity of a genius, do we?"

* DisneyVillainDeath: Inverted in ''The Cat Who Could Read Backwards'', where it's an ''innocent'', the artist Nino, who's murdered when he's pushed off a stepladder and falls twenty-six feet onto a concrete floor.

* AngstySurvivingTwin: The book features David Fitch, who has to deal with not only the murder of his twin brother Harley and his wife, but also their mother's fatal stroke and their father's suicide, both indirectly caused by the murder. His friends are all worried he may follow his father's example. [[spoiler:Subverted when we find out that David was DeadAllAlong and the surviving twin is actually Harley, who killed David in order to take his place. He was having an affair with David's wife. The parents' stroke and suicide were caused by the fact that they figured out the truth, and couldn't live with it.]]

* EvilTwin: The existence of an evil twin turns out to be a plot point in resolving the murder. [[spoiler:Everyone thinks that mild-mannered David is mourning the recent murders of his twin brother Harley and sister-in-law Jill, and that the tragedy is what caused the twins' mother to have a stroke. It's eventually revealed that Harley was having an affair with David's wife, and they cooked up a scheme in which Harley killed both David and Jill and took David's place. The mother's stroke happened when ''she figured it out''.]] It's especially jarring because prior to all of this, no one had any suspicions about either twin.

* AnyoneCanDie: Being beloved by the readers will not save a character from dying. Sometimes they're murdered, but there are also fatal car accidents ([[spoiler: Liz Hart in book #28, during a storm]]), heart attacks ([[spoiler: Eddington Smith in book #23]]), and just plain old age ([[spoiler: Homer Tibbet in book #28, who dies in his sleep]]).

* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Don Exbridge, founder of XYZ Enterprises, is usually regarded this way InUniverse. It's proven correct when [[spoiler: book #23 (''The Cat Who Smelled a Rat'') sees him caught out as participating in a {{Ponzi}} scheme.]]
* CorruptPolitician: Gregory Blythe, the mayor of Pickax, mockingly referred to as "Hizzonor" for most of the series. He's eventually voted out as a result of the events of book #23 (''The Cat Who Smelled a Rat''), [[spoiler: which saw him arrested for his involvement in a Ponzi scheme]], and replaced with Amanda Goodwinter, the local JerkWithAHeartOfGold.

* DisappearedDad: Qwill's father Dana Qwilleran, whom Qwill never met; he died before Qwill was born [[spoiler: because he was shot while trying to rob a bank out of desperation]]. It's not until book 22 (''The Cat Who Robbed a Bank'') that Qwill even learns his name through letters his mother sent to Francesca Klingenschoen, and is rather furious when he discovers the truth about the man's fate.

* EvilDetectingDog: Qwill's hyper-intelligent Siamese cat Koko has shades of this. He ''especially'' dislikes [[spoiler: the gold-digging Melinda Goodwinter, who was intent on marrying Qwill for his money and later tried to kill another woman whom she felt was in her way, and expressed this dislike quite often]].

** Qwill considers himself to be something like this to Liz Hart, whom he meets when he saves her life on Breakfast Island after she is bitten by a deadly snake. A later book notes that because of that connection, he takes a sort of "godfatherly interest" in the young woman's well-being and activities. [[spoiler: When she dies in a car accident in book #28 (''The Cat Who Dropped a Bombshell''), he is deeply saddened.]]

* SdrawkcabAlias: In the first book, [[spoiler: Scrano is O. Narx]].

* UndercoverCopReveal: The last chapter casually reveals that [[spoiler: Hollis Prantz, one of the Junktown dealers]], is actually an undercover officer from Narcotics and was investigating a heroin ring in the area.

* EvilDetectingDog: Koko's talent at detecting crimes is particularly showcased in ''The Cat Who Saw Red''; Qwill is given an art piece by the man who married Joy, Qwill's first love, and he knows he hates the man, but he has no real reason apart from jealousy. Koko circles the piece of pottery and then hisses at it, prompting Qwill to decide, "We can't both be wrong." [[spoiler: The red glazing on the pottery was created by its artist putting Joy's body into the kiln after he murdered her.]]
* FurnaceBodyDisposal: In ''The Cat Who Saw Red'', Qwill learns that the murder victim's body was disposed of in a potter's kiln. [[spoiler: It's what created the red "living glaze" on the pots.]]
* FirstGirlWins: To a small extent. In ''The Cat Who Saw Red'', Qwill is reunited with his first love, [[MeaningfulName Joy]]; he admits that every woman he's ever been involved with since her, including his ex-wife, has reminded him of her. [[spoiler: After she's murdered, he finally moves on.]]

* HonoraryUncle: Qwill refers to Fanny Klingenschoen as Aunt Fanny, as he has done since childhood; she's actually his late mother's best friend, and considers him her godson. [[spoiler: This is why she leaves him her estate of roughly $4 billion.]]

* DrivenToSuicide: The last death in ''The Cat Who Played Post Office'' is made to look like one, until the very end when Qwill realizes [[spoiler: Penelope Goodwinter really did commit suicide, but made it look like her brother Alexander and their cohort Birch Tree murdered her. It's then implied Alexander commits suicide as well by crashing a plane to get out of being arrested for his role in the deaths of Daisy and Della Mull and Tiffany Trotter.]]

* NeverFoundTheBody: The driving plot of ''The Cat Who Played Post Office'' involves Qwill trying to figure out what happened to Daisy Mull, who disappeared five years earlier, after he gets confirmation that one of the supposed messages she sent indicating she was leaving was a forgery. [[spoiler: She was killed by Birch Tree and her body was hidden by a mine collapse.]]
* NeverSuicide: The victim even leaves a note saying that if she apparently commits suicide, it was most likely murder at the hands of the most obvious suspect in the murder Qwill was originally investigating. However, [[spoiler: the trope is subverted at the [[TwistEnding very last page]]. As Qwill himself says, "It wasn't murder made to look like suicide, it was suicide made to look like murder!" On top of that, it's entirely possible that the victim wasn't exactly the manipulated patsy of an accomplice she makes herself out to be. She was, after all, the brains of the family law firm.]]

* SuicideNotMurder: ''The Cat Who Played Post Office'' has one of the people involved in a murder plot send Qwill a letter describing the plot and saying that she fears her partners will try to kill her and make it look like an accident or a suicide. Actually it was a genuine suicide. [[spoiler: She killed herself because her brother [[BrotherSisterIncest rejected her]] [[WomanScorned to marry another woman]], and the letter was her way of getting revenge on him.]]

* HoistByHisOwnPetard: [[spoiler: Herb Hackpole, after getting remarried to Iris Cobb, tries to burn down the new Klingenschoen Museum so she can't work there, like she insisted she was going to continue to do after they got married. He succeeds in destroying the museum, but dies in the blaze in the process.]]

* AngstySurvivingTwin: The book features David Fitch, who has to deal with not only the murder of his twin brother Harley and his wife, but also their mother's fatal stroke and their father's suicide, both indirectly caused by the murder. His friends are all worried he may follow his father's example. [[spoiler: Subverted when we find out that David was DeadAllAlong and the surviving twin is actually Harley, who killed David in order to take his place. He was having an affair with David's wife. The parents' stroke and suicide were caused by the fact that they figured out the truth, and couldn't live with it.]]

* EvilTwin: The existence of an evil twin turns out to be a plot point in resolving the murder. [[spoiler: Everyone thinks that mild-mannered David is mourning the recent murders of his twin brother Harley and sister-in-law Jill, and that the tragedy is what caused the twins' mother to have a stroke. It's eventually revealed that Harley was having an affair with David's wife, and they cooked up a scheme in which Harley killed both David and Jill and took David's place. The mother's stroke happened when ''she figured it out''.]] It's especially jarring because prior to all of this, no one had any suspicions about either twin.

* SelfMadeOrphan: [[spoiler: Harley Fitch]], arguably. He didn't directly kill his parents, nor even intend for them to die, but they both died as a direct result of his actions.

* DeathByChildbirth: [[spoiler: The mother of the book's killer died giving birth to her second daughter.]]
* FreudianExcuse: What turned the book's killer into a killer. [[spoiler: Years of sexual abuse and the suicide of her twelve-year-old sister, who was also being abused, led to her developing a second personality who concluded that since her abuser was a carpenter, all carpenters were bad, therefore she started killing them.]]

* InheritanceMurder: [[spoiler: Harvey Ledfield slips mold into the air vents of his aunt and uncle's home, triggering respiratory illnesses that eventually kill them, all to ensure he'll get their money to invest in a ski lodge he's wanting to fund. It comes out afterward that he wouldn't have gotten anything, as all their money goes to charitable groups.]]

In the fifth book, though, the series moves away from the city and into the northern part of America, into an area known as Moose County. Initially, he's visiting for a vacation, but things take a turn for the worse when [[ItWasHisSled his "aunt" Fanny Klingenschoen]] is the BodyOfTheWeek. He then, after solving the crime, inherits her money, with the provision that he live in Moose County for five years (a period which officially ends at the start of book 13).

** James Mackintosh Qwilleran had his name legally changed, as revealed in book #16 (''The Cat Who Came to Breakfast''), when he admits the truth to Liz Hart when she's doing a numerological reading of his name. Few other characters -- possibly none other than Arch Riker -- know that his birth name was ''Merlin'' James Qwilleran. Book 22 reveals that it came from his mother being a fan of the King Arthur stories.

* IllGirl: Qwill's ex-wife Miriam is indicated to be one of these; in book 3 (''The Cat Who Turned On and Off''), Arch snipes at him about having sent her money and he protests, pointing out that she's in poor health. In book 23 (''The Cat Who Smelled a Rat''), Qwill admits to his friend Weatherby Goode that she had a nervous breakdown and was committed to an institution soon after their divorce (which her parents had talked her into doing, since they'd never approved of Qwill), and that it's been a few years since she died there.

* IllGirl: Doyle Underhill's wife Wendy, who has a congenital heart condition and is under strict orders to avoid stress. Her condition eventually sends her to the hospital with a heart attack, which she fortunately survives.

* MysteryMagnet: James Qwilleren encounters murders and other various crimes with alarming frequency, even as the newspaper he works for often sends him out to do innocuous fluff pieces on things like a food expo, art exhibits, and the like. [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when one of the characters comments that he cannot remember any dead bodies before Qwilleran came to town.

* DisappearedDad: Qwill's father Dana Qwilleran, whom Qwill never met [[spoiler: because he was shot while trying to rob a bank out of desperation]]. It's not until book 22 (''The Cat Who Robbed a Bank'') that Qwill even learns his name through letters his mother sent to Francesca Klingenschoen, and is rather furious when he discovers the truth about the man's fate.

* OddNameNormalNicknamed: Qwill's librarian girlfriend is Polly Duncan. Very few people know that Polly's father was such a Shakespeare devotee that all of his children were named after characters from the plays, and Polly's real first name is actually ''Hippolyta''.

* PetTheDog: Qwill engages in this as frequently as circumstances allow. If he likes someone, he will go to great lengths to contribute to their happiness and well-being. One example: after the death of Junior Goodwinter's father, his mother auctions off practically everything they own, including a family heirloom desk which had been promised to Junior. Qwill defiantly outbids every challenger in order to purchase the desk, so he can give to Junior as a wedding gift when he marries his sweetheart Jodie.