This is book two and three in the Cats and Curios Mystery series. I'm reviewing them together because I didn't like either very much and I don't think there's much difference between them.
The main problem I had with them, apart from the ludicrously slow moving storyline, is the point-of-view constantly jumping, even in the middle of a chapter. Not just to different people (there were nine in book 3), but to inanimate objects and animals too. It was incredibly confusing and off-putting. Honestly, if I hadn't already bought the books I wouldn't have bothered reading them.
I don't really understand how the author got from book one to these two books. Similar characters, but all a bit of a mess really in the storyline. What is going on gets so confusing because of the constant jumping of viewpoints. If you've never met a character (or tree, rock, statue, frog, cat...) before you're not going to understand that you're suddenly listening to what they're thinking.
I didn't find the characters engaging at all, we just spent too little time with them. The main protagonist could have been killed, along with her cats, and it wouldn't have made a difference to the story.
I won't be bothering with the next three books in the series and these three are off to Goodwill.