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WORK TITLE: The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency: A Hettie Bagshot Mystery
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Cambridge & Corwall, England
STATE:
COUNTRY: United Kingdom
NATIONALITY: British
https://us.macmillan.com/author/mandymorton/ * http://www.allisonandbusby.com/author/mandy-moreton *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
LC control no.: nb2016006444
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/nb2016006444
HEADING: Morton, Mandy
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035 __ |a (Uk)009582555
040 __ |a Uk |b eng |e rda |c Uk |d DLC
046 __ |s 20
053 _0 |a PR6113.O8245
100 1_ |a Morton, Mandy
370 __ |c Great Britain |e Cambridge (England) |e Cornwall (England : County) |2 naf
372 __ |a Journalism |a Music |a Fiction |2 lcsh
374 __ |a Journalists |a Musicians |a Novelists |2 lcsh
375 __ |a female
377 __ |a eng
670 __ |a The No 2 Feline Detective Agency, 2015: |b t.p. (Mandy Morton) prelim. (began professional life as a musician; worked as a freeland arts journalist; currently presents the radio arts magazine The Eclectic Light Show; lives in Cambridge and Cornwall)
670 __ |a In good company : a snapshot of theatre and the arts, 2005: |b t.p. (Mandy Morton)
PERSONAL
Born in the United Kingdom; partner, Nicole Upson.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Writer. Has also worked as professional musician and freelance arts journalist for national and local radio.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Following a career as a touring musician with her band in the 1970s and 1980s, British writer Mandy Morton turned to freelance arts journalism for national and local radio, focusing on music and theater. She debuted as an author with her 2014 novel, The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, the first in a cozy series of the same title.
"The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency" Series
In The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, Morton takes the traditional cozy mystery in new directions, featuring an all-feline cast of characters. Hettie Bagshot, a cat with a purpose, has opened her detective agency just in time to take on the case of disappearing cat corpses. Furcross is a home for aging cats, and it seems three former residents have been stolen from their graves. Hettie is accompanied by an arthritic feline sidekick, Tilly, and together they set out to solve this crime, even though neither has ever done any detective work. As the human world goes on obliviously around them, Hettie and Tilly interview the nurse at Furcross, Alma Mogadon, the gardener and romance novelist Digger Patch, and all sorts of other feline characters to get to the bottom of things. “The mystery is gossamer-thin, the detective work modest, the characterization ditto,” noted a Kirkus Reviews critic, “but everyone who suspects that cats have always run the world will be at least a bit curious about how that works out in an alternate reality.” A Publishers Weekly reviewer had praise for this series launch, noting that “for lovers of cat cozies, the world that Morton has created will be irresistible.”
The series continues with Cat among the Pumpkins, Hettie and Tilly investigate the stabbing death of feline genealogist Mavis Spitforce, whose corpse has been left disguised as a pumpkin. Suspicion for motive falls on the fact that Mavis was writing a book about a notorious Halloween killing; however, Hettie is less interested in these speculations and more in Mavis’s will and who might benefit from her death. “For those who can accept the premise that cats can wear clothes, ride motorcycles, and run detective agencies, this series has a peculiar English charm,” noted a Publishers Weekly reviewer. A Kirkus Reviews critic, however, had a more varied assessment of this second installment, commenting: “Even in the capable paws of Hettie and Tilly, the plot never exactly thickens.” The critic further noted the “obligatory wordplay, some of it inventive, some truly cringeworthy.”
Hettie and Tilly are hired to run security for an annual literary festival in The Death of Downton Tabby. But as literary luminaries arrive, the feline detectives discover that a serial killer is stalking the festival. The Ghost of Christmas Paws finds Hettie and Tilly summoned to a manor house on the Cornish coast to deal with Christmas Paws, a ghost of a servant intent on killing off the resident Crabstock-Singe family. Further feline adventures take place in The Michaelmas Murders, in which Hettie and Tilly investigate the theft of prize vegetables and a dead body in an onion patch ahead of the annual flower show.
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, February 1, 2017, review of The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency; August 1, 2017, review of Cat among the Pumpkins.
Publishers Weekly, January 23, 2017, review of The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, p. 57; August 14, 2017, review of Cat among the Pumpkins, p. 52.
ONLINE
Allison and Busby Website, http://www.allisonandbusby.com/ (November 4, 2017), “Mandy Morton.”*
Author Mandy Morton
Mandy Morton began her professional life as a musician. More recently, she has worked as a freelance arts journalist for national and local radio. She lives with her partner Nicola Upson in Cambridge and Cornwall, where there is always a place for an ageing long-haired tabby cat.
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Mandy Morton
Mandy Morton began her professional life as a musician. Her songwriting formed the basis of six albums during the 1970s and early 1980s, when she toured extensively with her band. More recently, she has worked as a freelance arts journalist for national and local radio, specialising in making music and theatre documentary. She is the co-author of a non-fiction theatre book, In Good Company, and lives with her partner in Cambridge and Cornwall, where there is always a place for an ageing long-haired tabby cat.
The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency is her first novel, and begins a series of books inspired by her first cat, Hettie.
New Books
August 2017
(paperback)
The Michaelmas Murders
(No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, book 5)
Series
No. 2 Feline Detective Agency
1. The No 2 Feline Detective Agency (2014)
2. Cat Among the Pumpkins (2014)
3. The Death of Downton Tabby (2016)
4. The Ghost of Christmas Paws (2016)
5. The Michaelmas Murders (2017)
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QUOTE:
For those who can accept the premise that cats can wear clothes, ride motorcycles, and run
detective agencies, this series has a peculiar English charm
11/2/2017 General OneFile - Saved Articles
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Print Marked Items
Cat Among the Pumpkins: A Hettie Bagshot
Mystery
Publishers Weekly.
264.33 (Aug. 14, 2017): p52.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
Cat Among the Pumpkins: A Hettie Bagshot Mystery
Mandy Morton. Minotaur, $24.99 (256p) ISBN 978-1-250-09787-3
In British author Morton's weird and fanciful second mystery set in an alternative universe populated by talking cats
(after The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency), Hettie Bagshot, the tabby cat founder of the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency,
and her assistant, Tilly Jenkins, investigate the stabbing murder of genealogist Mavis Spitforce, whose body was found
dressed like a pumpkin. Mavis was writing a book about the notorious case of Thaddeus "Milky" Myers, who long ago
killed his entire family. He's rumored to haunt the family homestead out by Much-Purring-on-the-Rug, and every
Halloween the locals fear he'll kill again. Hettie believes that Mavis's death had more to do with the contents of her will
than with the supernatural, but she needs the assistance of both the odd Rev. Jacob Surplus and Irene Peggledrip, a
medium, to solve the case. For those who can accept the premise that cats can wear clothes, ride motorcycles, and run
detective agencies, this series has a peculiar English charm. Agent: David Marshall, Marshall Rights. (Oct.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Cat Among the Pumpkins: A Hettie Bagshot Mystery." Publishers Weekly, 14 Aug. 2017, p. 52+. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA501717099&it=r&asid=0d06e76a19c72b5da6b8b57aa0d248b9.
Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A501717099
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QUOTE:
The mystery is gossamer-thin, the detective work modest, the characterization ditto,
But everyone who suspects that cats have always run
the world will be at least a bit curious about how that works out in an alternate reality.
Morton, Mandy: THE NO. 2 FELINE
DETECTIVE AGENCY
Kirkus Reviews.
(Feb. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Morton, Mandy THE NO. 2 FELINE DETECTIVE AGENCY Minotaur (Adult Fiction) $24.99 3, 28 ISBN: 978-1-
250-09783-5
Tired of watching Lilian Jackson Braun's Koko and Yum Yum get upstaged by that do-nothing Jim Qwilleran? Wish the
sleuthing pets in Rita Mae Brown's tales had even more prominent roles? Morton's debut, featuring an all-feline cast
running amok in something like modern England, is the answer to your prayers.Marcia Woolcoat, the matron of the
Furcross home for slightly older cats, offers her residents an unusually comfortable end-of-life option: pillar-to-post
group euthanasia, complete with last rites from beautician Oralia Claw and interment in coffins the clients have selected
and hunkered down in. She's so shocked when the bodies of her three latest (pun intended) clients, Vita, Virginia, and
Pansy Merlot, are stolen from their newly dug graves that she instantly engages Hettie Bagshot, a former musician
who's just opened the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, even though Hettie's never worked a case. Once the three
corpses, shorn of their fur, turn up, the detection mostly takes Hettie and Tilly Jenkins, her arthritic assistant, on a round
robin interviewing the likes of Furcross resident nurse Alma Mogadon, romance novelist/gardener Digger Patch,
haberdashery salesclerk Lotus Ping, and fashionista Cocoa Repel as the ailurocentric world goes on around them
listening to Tabby Wynette, watching Cat on a Hot Tinned Roof, reading Alexander McPaw Spit, and waiting for the
premiere of Desperate Housecats. The mystery is gossamer-thin, the detective work modest, the characterization ditto,
and the puns--well, you already know how you feel about them. But everyone who suspects that cats have always run
the world will be at least a bit curious about how that works out in an alternate reality.
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Morton, Mandy: THE NO. 2 FELINE DETECTIVE AGENCY." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Feb. 2017. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479234559&it=r&asid=632d74027043e00f69ad322488c0fb84.
Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A479234559
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QUOTE:
for lovers of cat cozies, the world that Morton has created will be irresistible.
The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency: A Hettie
Bagshot Mystery
Publishers Weekly.
264.4 (Jan. 23, 2017): p57.
COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Full Text:
The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency: A Hettie Bagshot Mystery
Mandy Morton. Minotaur, $24.99 (272p) ISBN 978-1-250-09783-5
British author Morton's exceedingly whimsical debut and series launch introduces Hettie Bagshot, a mac-wearing tabby
cat who's the founder of the No. 2 Feline Detective Agency, and Hetties able assistant, Tilly Jenkins. Hetties unnamed
community is populated solely by cats with careers as musicians, bakers, and plumbers; they own shops and put on
fashion shows. Facing eviction and desperate for a case, Hettie agrees to help her friend Marcia Woolcoat, matron of
the Furcross Home for Slightly Older Cats, discover who has snatched the bodies of three recently deceased residents
from their graves. Hettie does her best but, constantly distracted by the prospect of lunch and a catnip pipe, she's not the
most dedicated detective. When the furless bodies turn up in a rubbish bin and the nurse at the retirement home
commits suicide, Hettie finds that solving mysteries isn't as easy as she hoped. Rather like actual cats, the story
meanders all over the place. But for lovers of cat cozies, the world that Morton has created will be irresistible. Agent:
David Marshall, Marshall Rights. (Mar.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency: A Hettie Bagshot Mystery." Publishers Weekly, 23 Jan. 2017, p. 57. General
OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA479714158&it=r&asid=97f58b1c49d880913977578ab6ebab9c.
Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A479714158
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Morton, Mandy: CAT AMONG THE
PUMPKINS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Aug. 1, 2017):
COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Morton, Mandy CAT AMONG THE PUMPKINS Minotaur (Adult Fiction) $24.99 10, 10 ISBN: 978-1-250-09787-3
Halloween brings an appropriately grotesque second case to those purrfect partners, Hettie Bagshot and Tilly Jenkins,
whose earlier adventures were chronicled in The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency (2017). Milky Myers, suspected of
massacring his whole family ages ago, is reputed to haunt the old house currently occupied by Irene Piggledrip. His
story, along with the seances Irene holds to display the spectral wisdom of her familiar, Crimola, sets the stage for the
interruption of Hettie's visit to the Friendship Club, where she's come to give a talk about how to keep yourself safe in a
dangerous world, by post-cat Teezle Makepeace's cries of murder. Someone has stabbed Friendship Club secretary
Mavis Spitfire to death, outfitted her in a pumpkin costume, and shoved loose pages of Strange But True, the notorious
collection of tales in which crabbed gossip Marmite Sprat has kept the story of Milky Myers alive, into her mouth.
There's no dearth of suspects, from Mavis' heirs apparent, her grimly pleased sister, Mildred, and her spoiled niece,
Lavinia, to Irene, the actual legatee named by a will less than two weeks old, and Lavinia's landlady, Friendship Club
president Bugs Anderton. Even in the capable paws of Hettie and Tilly, the plot never exactly thickens, although a
second member of the community will be strung up in Irene's backyard and a third will end up flavoring a kettle of
curry. Readers seeking a break from the obligatory wordplay, some of it inventive, some truly cringeworthy, can savor
an unexpectedly moving scene between Hettie and the Rev. Jacob Surplus, the vicar of St. Biscuit's, in the church
graveyard. Is it a coincidence that the principal characters are not only all feline, but overwhelmingly female? Or just an
unusually explicit hint of how well Morton knows her target audience?
Source Citation (MLA 8th
Edition)
"Morton, Mandy: CAT AMONG THE PUMPKINS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Aug. 2017. General OneFile,
go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?
p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA499572792&it=r&asid=fd0e8f7164be5a57be6aeb56874c4250.
Accessed 2 Nov. 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A499572792