Unleash the Murder Mittens

Mystery writers sometimes talk about doing research for their stories, shadowing police and attending forensic science seminars¹. They will tell you about the articles they’ve read, the interviews they’ve conducted, perhaps the actual, elaborate crimes they planned and executed in the name of verisimilitude.

Amateurs. If you want to be a serious crime writer, observe nature’s greatest criminals: Cats.

I have a house filled with cats, thanks to my formidable wife The Duchess, who continuously brings home kittens, the tiny things crawling out of her coat pockets and turning up in kitchen drawers, on bookshelves, and inside shoes². These adorable savages inevitably grow up and become vicious killers; over the years I’ve witnessed so many terrible crimes I can now write crime stories from memory, no research required. I have seen a number of poor birds captured via feats of acrobatic violence and calmly murdered on my kitchen floor. I have seen innumerable insects consumed, vomited up, and (often) consumed again. The cats routinely attempt to murder each other, suddenly combining like reactive atoms into a ball of screaming, fur-flinging terror³. I myself am covered in wounds from cat’s claws, which we jovially nick-name Murder Mittens. No one can prove these wounds are not the result of repeated murder attempts⁴.

Silent, they are rarely caught in the act. Patient, they typically wait out investigations in dark hiding places, emerging for a snack only after the heat is gone. Heck, any scientist will tell you that if you want to destroy an ecosystem anywhere in the world, all you need to do is introduce some cats. There is nothing an aspiring murderer couldn’t learn from a cat⁵.

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I don’t always write stories about cats who commit crimes, but when I do I owe an obvious debt to the novel Felidae by Akif Pirinçci. When you hear the words crime, mystery, and cat you assume you are about to read a delightful cozy, perhaps involving a stolen sardine⁶. When I read Felidae as a young man, it was the first time since Tobermory that fictional cats had been treated with the appropriate amount of fear and grim respect; it’s the story of a cat serial killer and the intelligent, brave cat who solves the crimes and brings justice to his little world—it’s a terrific book, and if you haven’t read it, you really should.

What Pirinçci does in Felidae is tie the behaviors and attitudes of his cat characters to their innate animal nature. While the cats that populate his story are all recognizably anthropomorphic personalities, their decisions and reactions stem from the alien point-of-view of a cat⁷. The result is a murder investigation that is just slightly off-kilter, and one that views our world through a slightly distorted lens.

This is what I stole took away from Felidae for my own stories about murderous felines and the dogged cat detectives who bring them to justice. That and darkness, because a cat’s world is a predator’s world, and that means a world very much aware of life and death⁸. Cozier, more cheerful stories about cat detectives and the like never rang true for me, because I know firsthand that my cats would eat me if I ever fell down the stairs and lay dead on the floor of my house for a few days⁹.

Of course, I don’t only write about crime-committing and -solving cats. When I need something a little lighter, I write about humans committing murders, too, and sometimes cyborgs murdering things when I need a jolt of positivity.

1. This sounds suspiciously like work, and I became a professional writer to avoid work, thank you very much.
2. If you wish to be ended in a violent manner, refer to her as a Cat Lady.
3. If you have never been ripped from slumber by the sound of two cats locked in screaming combat: I do not recommend.
4. My cat Homer has claws so sharp he can casually gesture at you from across the room and two minutes later you’re in an ambulance and an EMT is shouting “NOT ON MY WATCH, SIR! NOT ON MY WATCH!”
5. Especially the importance of a solid napping schedule. Many master criminals rotting away in jail would be free today if they’d scheduled a nap every afternoon.
6. Or, if you live in my house, those words suggest the great mystery of Who Pooped in My Shoes This Time?
7. How alien? Cats will see a tumbleweed of another cat’s fur floating by on the floor and decide, yes, this would be delicious and then eat it.
8. Maybe. Because I have also seen cats mystified as to why a bird they’ve spent the last 15 minutes mauling before my frenzied rescue attempts no longer wants to play with them.
9. Or—more likely—a few hours.