Final Catcall by Sofie Kelly

From Goodreads: Small-town librarian Kathleen Paulson gets plenty of entertainment from her extraordinary cats, Owen and Hercules. But when a theatre troupe stumbles into more tragedy than it bargained for, it’s up to Kathleen to play detective.... With her sort-of boyfriend Marcus calling it quits and her ex-boyfriend Andrew showing up out of the blue, Kathleen has more than enough drama to deal with—and that’s before a local theatre festival relocates to Mayville Heights. Now the town is buzzing with theatre folk, and many of them have their own private dramas with the director, Hugh Davis. When Davis is found shot to death by the marina, he leaves behind evidence of blackmail and fraud, as well as an ensemble of suspects. Now Kathleen, with a little help from her feline friends Owen and Hercules, will have to catch the real killer before another victim takes a final curtain call.

Sofie, you're killing me! I really want to know more about how or why Owen and Hercules have their special abilities, and there's still nothing in this 5th installment of the Magical Cat mysteries! Our adorable feline sleuths are their usual precocious selves, using their furry wiles to uncover clues to the murder. Kathleen has a bit of a rocky start in this one, having just been injured in the last episode, and being in a rough patch with Marcus. The two of them find out they're a lot alike when the tables are turned and Marcus is the one with loved ones involved. In the meantime Kathleen's previous life before Mayville comes to call, one invited and one not. We're all prepared to dislike Andrew because of how he treated Kathleen before she came to our lovely little town, but strangely he's not a half bad guy. How much of that is real and how much is an act is hard to tell, but he seems to get roped into doing a lot of work for the festival, so I felt kind of bad for him that he was swimming upstream in his efforts to get Kathleen back to Boston. I did really like Kathleen's mother, Thea.  I kind of picture her like the mother in the Castle TV show, sweeping in all perfect and glamorous, but totally lovable.

While I still don't have any answers about our fuzzy boys, there was definite progress in Kathleen's life, decisions were made, and I really love the town of Mayville Heights.  It's small, but very artsy, with a Carnegie library and a great core group of residents that I've come to care about, plus there always seem to be lots of brownies and desserts and muffins and such floating around all the time! Who wouldn't love that?!

The next book in the series is holiday themed I think, so not sure if I'll squeeze it in this season or next, or if I'll be able to wait (Christmas in July maybe?) because I'm still holding out hope to learn more about our magical cats from Wysteria Hill!  Give these a try if you love cozies and cats, libraries and artistic communities, it's all there!