The Whiskered Witness

Before you read

1. The story opens with a village festival, a crowded café and a speech nobody wants to hear. What do you enjoy about a mystery that starts in the middle of a cheerful public event, and what do you hope goes wrong?
2. A cozy mystery often puts an ordinary small-business owner in the sleuth's chair. What can someone who runs a shop or café notice about people that a detective might miss?
3. Think of the paper trail in your own life: old letters, deeds, receipts, family diaries. Which written records do you trust most, and which would you question?
4. Many readers love a cat who seems to know more than the humans. What do you want from an animal sidekick, and what would make you roll your eyes?

Discussion questions

Spoilers ahead. Finish the book first.

1. Poppy learns early that someone is arranging clues rather than hiding them: "Someone was not merely hiding evidence. Someone was arranging it." Which clue did you trust first, and when did you start to doubt it?
2. The cuff link, the pen cap, the plum-colored fabric, the lavender handkerchief and the baker's label all point at different people. Did the book play fair with these red herrings, and which suspect did you most want to be guilty?
3. Barnaby Quill is cheerful, helpful and always in the room, yet he is quietly present at nearly every turn. Looking back, which small moments should have warned you, and why do likable characters so often escape suspicion?
4. Poppy's confrontation in the archive room turns on the idea that the letters do not make Beatrice Quill a liar but "human." How does the book ask us to weigh a family's legend against the messier truth?
5. Celeste Rowan begins as a prickly, fussy author and ends as one of the story's most generous characters. Which moment changed your opinion of her, and was her secret about the Hawthorn Ridge shares a lie or only an omission?
6. Edwin Moss is warm and funny, then caught rowing away with the missing archive papers. Did you feel betrayed alongside Poppy, and does his reason for taking them make it easier to forgive?
7. Nora Bell hears her own voice come through a phone and is suddenly the center of suspicion. What does the book say about trusting the people closest to us when the evidence seems to point their way?
8. The library's future rests on a trust deed rather than a council decision. Why do you think the author made a library, and not a business or a house, the thing Thistleford fights to protect?
9. Sabine Vale, in her red coat, is both villain and decoy for much of the story, and even at the end she is not fully cleared. Is she a victim, an opportunist or something in between, and should she be charged?
10. The final scene brings Agatha the kitten, a purple crayon note and a child's drawing. What do you think the drawing means, and what do you want from the next story?

Pairing menu

Drink

A pot of tea, enjoyed "under feline supervision," as the café's sign promises, with a lemon tart on the side.

Bite

A warm currant scone or cinnamon bun, the sort of thing that Edwin carries out on a tray and sets on his folding table outside the café.

Setting

A sunny window seat with a cat nearby and a stack of old letters or a favorite library book, preferably with a striped awning outside and bunting strung down the lane.