History Literature / TheCatInTheStacksMysteries

* LaxativePrank: ''Not'' played for laughs when it's discussed in book 7. Cassandra Brownley, head of the library's collection development and acquisitions department, is identified as having done this to two different people. One of her fellow employees went over her head to get some materials for the library that he felt were needed and she didn't; she tricked him into eating a large quantity of laxatives, which resulted in a hospital visit. He left the college soon after.

** Also in book 7, Cassandra Brownley, head of the library's collection development and acquisitions department, is identified as having done this to two different people. One tactfully corrected her in front of several people; Cassandra's retaliation (filling her office with plastic bugs, since she was scared of them) caused her to suffer a panic attack and break two limbs when she tripped over a chair while trying to flee them. The other went over her head to get some materials for the library that he felt were needed and she didn't; she tricked him into eating a large quantity of laxatives, which resulted in a hospital visit. In both cases, the victims left the college soon after.

''The Cat in the Stacks'' is an armchair/amateur sleuth/CozyMystery series by Dean James [[MoustacheDePlume writing as Miranda James]]. The series features librarian Charlie Harris, a widowed father of two adult children, and his pet Maine coon cat Diesel. Having moved back to his old hometown of Athena, Mississippi three years before the start of the series and met Diesel one year later, Charlie works as an archivist in the library of Athena College and, with Diesel, has a tendency to stumble across mysteries.

''The Cat in the Stacks'' is an armchair/amateur sleuth/CozyMystery series by Dean James [[MoustacheDePlume writing as Miranda James]]. The series features librarian Charlie Harris, a widowed father of two adult children, and his pet Maine coon cat Diesel. Having moved back to his old hometown of Athena, Mississippi three years before the start of the series and met Diesel one year later, Charlie works at an archivist in the library of Athena College and, with Diesel, has a tendency to stumble across mysteries.

* Cat #7: ''No Cats Allowed'' (January 2016) [[labelnote:Summary]]Athena's new library director, Oscar Reilly, has made a number of his enemies in his efforts to cut costs and replace some of the staff with younger members. He even bans all animals, including Diesel, from the library. But when Reilly turns up dead, suspicion falls on Charlie's friend Melba, and Charlie must figure out the real culprit before it's too late.[[/labelnote]]

* RecurringCharacter: Justin Wardlaw, one of Charlie's boarders, who has a major role in book 1 and then spends most of the rest of the series off-screen, either being [[WrittenInAbsence described as away]] in books 2, 7, 8 and 9, and entirely offscreen in books 5 and 6. By book 11, he's moved out of Charlie's house and in with family near campus for his last year of college.

* Cat #15: ''Hiss Me Deadly'' (announced for January 2023) [[labelnote:Summary]]Wil Threadgill, an upperclassman from Charlie's old high school and now a famous musician, returns to Athena. But not everyone approves, and when one of the band members is killed, Charlie must act to find the culprit before they set their eyes on Charlie's friend Melba, who's become close to Wil since his return.[[/labelnote]]

** Or cat, rather -- Diesel has a knack for telling nice people from nasty ones. People he dislikes include one crook in book 2 and two {{Asshole Victim}}s in book 3, and in book 7, he backs away from Oscar Reilly when they first meet, even before the man proves to be a total jerkwad, showing that Diesel's instincts are spot on.

* ShoutOutThemeNaming: The five kittens that appear in book 10 are all given names that are shout-outs to literature. Charlie names one of them Marlowe after the Elizabethan playwright Creator/ChristopherMarlowe (also after a female cat he'd once owned by the same name). Her sister is named Bastet, after a character from Elizabeth Peters' ''Literature/AmeliaPeabody'' books, and one of her brothers is Ramses, after a character from the same series. The last two males are named Fred and George, after the [[Franchise/HarryPotter Weasley twins]].

%%Looking for better trope* NotImportantToThisEpisodeCamp: Grownup character example -- Kanesha Berry is a series regular, but she's only mentioned a few times in book 9 and has a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance with no dialogue in the penultimate chapter.

* ADeadlyAffair: It's revealed in the conclusion of book 9 that [[spoiler:Hiram Barber's wife had slept with her old flame, Bill Delaney, and he was the real father of their twin sons. Hiram responded by murdering the boys and his wife, and in the following confrontation with Bill, was shot in the back by his only biological child, his daughter Elizabeth.]]

* NotImportantToThisEpisodeCamp: Kanesha Berry is mentioned a few times in book 9, but is never heard from or seen in person.

** [[spoiler:This is the motive behind the deaths in Ladies #3. Reba Dalrymple was obsessed with the idea of marrying Hadley Partridge and, knowing how close he was to his sister-in-law Callie, accused Callie of sleeping with him. Callie's husband Hamish, who was present at the time, lashed out and injured Callie, and Reba then hit her again when he left, making sure he was dead. Years later, when he returns, she starts killing (or trying to kill) any woman who might be interested in him, and when she finds out he's been married for years, comes roaring up to his home and tries to murder his wife. Thankfully, she's stopped in time.]]

* NeverOneMurder: Zig-zagged. [[spoiler:Books 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9, and Ladies #1 and 3, all feature multiple murders in the past and/or present, but books 1, 4 and 5, and Ladies #2 and 4, feature just one each.]]

* ScoobyDooHoax: [[spoiler:In Ladies #4, Henry Howard Caitlin pretends to be a ghost in the Bed and Breakfast he and his wife run, moving objects around in a room that's seemingly locked. He explains that his wife is unwilling to leave the place for so much as a day, lest something go wrong while she's away, but he's sick and tired of being tied to the house all the time and wants to at least be able to take her on a vacation. He eventually confesses the truth, and while she's initially furious, she eventually lets him explain himself and is understanding.]]

* TilMurderDoUsPart: In book 2, when Eloise Morris turns up dead, Charlie considers that her husband might have killed her to clear the way for him to marry the woman he's been having an affair with. It's not him though.

** In book 9, [[spoiler:the cold case Charlie is working on -- the murders of four people, twenty years ago -- turns out to have been this. Hiram Barber murdered his wife and sons, and then his daughter Elizabeth shot him in the back when she realized what he'd done.]]

* AbsenteeActor:
** Charlie's boarder Justin Wardlaw is absent for the entirety of books 5 and 10. Unlike other cases (see WrittenInAbsence), there's no reason given for his not being around these times. He's also off-screen for all of book 6, being mentioned all of once.
** Kanesha Berry is mentioned a few times in book 9, but is never heard from or seen in person.

** Godfrey Priest, a notorious ladie's man [[spoiler:who was also regularly cheating his business partner, the man who wrote most of the books published under Priest's name, out of his fair share of the money they brought in]], in book 1.

** Godfrey Priest, a notorious lady's man [[spoiler:who was also regularly cheating his business partner, the man who wrote most of the books published under Priest's name, out of his fair share of the money they brought in]], in book 1.

** Again in book [[spoiler:8. Gordon Fong blackmailed another man to keep him from getting a better job. This, coupled with his attempt to ''murder'' said victim later, led to his own death.]]

* ItIsPronouncedTroPay: Ladies #1 includes a pronunciation guide for the Ducote sisters' first names (pronounced ahn-JELL and Dixie, respectively) and family name (the latter is pronounced "Du/Dew-COH-tee"); book 7 had the pronunciation being given InUniverse. The sisters themselves don't much like it when people mispronounce their name, and their friends tend to also make sure other people pronounce it correctly.

* Cat #14: ''What the Cat Dragged In'' (announced for August 2021) [[labelnote:Summary]]Charlie discovers that contrary to what he'd believed, his grandfather's house had ''not'' been sold to its longtime tenant, but was left to Charlie himself. Checking out the house, he and Diesel soon find a new mystery to solve.[[/labelnote]]

* Cat #15: ''Hiss Me Deadly'' (announced for March 2022) [[labelnote:Summary]]Wil Threadgill, an upperclassman from Charlie's old high school and now a famous musician, returns to Athena. But not everyone approves, and when one of the band members is killed, Charlie must act to find the culprit before they set their eyes on Charlie's friend Melba, who's become close to Wil since his return.[[/labelnote]]

** Charlie's boarder Justin Wardlaw is absent for the entirety of book 5. Unlike other cases (see WrittenInAbsence), there's no reason given for his not being around this time. He's also off-screen for all of book 6, being mentioned all of once.

* RageBreakingPoint: In book 10, Milton Harville's had to deal with his wife Tammy's possessiveness of her. But when she actually calls Gerry Albritton a whore and essentially threatens to kill her if she doesn't stay away from Milton, Milton's finally had enough and threatens his wife with sending her to the state mental hospital if she doesn't stop acting like that.

** Book 13, per its early-release summary, involves Charlie, Diesel, Helen Louise and the Ducote sisters all visiting North Carolina.

* Cat #14: ''What the Cat Dragged In'' (announced for August 2021) [[labelnote:Summary]]Charlie inherits a house from his grandfather, but the house comes with a new mystery for he and Diesel to solve.
%%* Cat #15: ''(to be announced)'' - ordered in November 2019, per the author's Facebook page.

[[/labelnote]]

* InTheBlood: Book 9 has two examples.
** Delbert Collins, Charlie's long dead uncle, turned out to have been an alcoholic, though his wife Dottie managed to get him to drop it. He passed it on to his son Bill, whom he never met.
** In a darker example, [[spoiler:it turns out Hiram Barber inherited mental instability from his mother, who spent part of her life in a mental hospital and died there; it's part of what led to his crossing the line and murdering his wife and the sons she had with her lover. It also turns up in his daughter, who murdered her father after these killings and later tried to kill Bill Delaney, the only witness to the crime, because she thought he was going to finally expose her.]]

'''''The Cat in the Stacks''''' is an armchair/amateur sleuth/CozyMystery series by Dean James [[MoustacheDePlume writing as Miranda James]]. The series features librarian Charlie Harris, a widowed father of two adult children, and his pet Maine coon cat Diesel. Having moved back to his old hometown of Athena, Mississippi three years before the start of the series and met Diesel one year later, Charlie works at an archivist in the library of Athena College and, with Diesel, has a tendency to stumble across mysteries.

* {{Cuckold}}:
** In book 2, Hubert Morris is blatantly cheating on his mentally ill wife.
** [[spoiler:It's revealed in the conclusion of book 9 that Hiram Barber's wife had slept with her old flame, Bill Delaney, and he was the real father of their twin sons. Hiram responded by murdering the boys and his wife, and in the following confrontation with Bill, was shot in the back by his only biological child, his daughter Elizabeth.]]

* OnOneCondition: In Ladies #2, it's explained that Sondra Delevan will receive an inheritance from her late father either when she marries or when she turns 25, whichever comes first, but that if she marries ''before'' she turns 20, she gets nothing. This is part of why she refused to marry her stepbrother when she was seventeen, despite him getting her pregnant.

* Cat #14: ''What the Cat Dragged In'' (announced for May 2021) [[labelnote:Summary]]Charlie inherits a house from his grandfather, but the house comes with a new mystery for he and Diesel to solve.