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Seventh Deadly Sin: A Cat Caliban Mystery    by D. D. Borton Amazon.com order for
Seventh Deadly Sin
by D. D. Borton
Order:  USA  Can
Hilliard & Harris, 2004 (2004)
Hardcover, Paperback
* *   Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth

Fans of Cat Caliban can rejoice. After (in the opinion of many) too long a hiatus, the seventh of the series is available. Cat has lost none of her feistiness or self-deprecation, thank heavens. She is handling getting older well, but not without a few complaints along the way. Cat speaks of herself as a sixty-one year old woman who is almost ready for the trash heap. I take exception to that. I'm seventy-two and just getting started.

A teenaged boy is found murdered. His grandmother asks Cat to find out why. Cat and the quirky tenants in her apartment building are delighted that she's taking her first case as an apprentice detective. But as the investigation delves into the boy's immediate past, it seems that there are more people involved than first believed ... also a church. Cat, in the pursiit of clues, finds a body floating in a swimming pool. Another teenager. Suicide or murder? Cat goes undercover to volunteer for office work at the church in question. She didn't bargain for the chimpanzee Evie, whose presence is worked into the sermons on Sunday.

Though Cat's language leaves something to be desired at times, it fits the occasion and the speaker. Cat is a woman who refuses to sit by the sidelines and watch the world go by. Though creaky in the joints and a little slower in her movements than she would like to be, she struggles to do what is right and just. Seventh Deadly Sin is full of action and fun. It takes place in the 1980s - to pick up from where the last book left off. We meet the first of the computer geeks and there are no cell phones to rescue a damsel in distress - or in Cat's case, a dowager in distress. It's good to have Cat Caliban back with us. Don't wait so long again, Cat.

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