I picked this up as my entry point to the series, which given it is twelve books in porbably doesn't help, but found it plesaingly understandable anyway. There are several references to previous events, which I assume happened in the other books, but they don't effect the plot of this one at all.

Qwill a semi-retired jounalist ex-police officer has recently moved into a large barn conversion with his two cats, and is new arrangements are part of the talk of hte town. Following the sucessful close of the local Am Dram production of HenryVIII, the actors descend upon him for a late night party. In the morning the cats discover that the producer - the unliked school headmaster - never made it home. Although Qeill doesn't investigate as such, in the manner of a male Miss Marple, or a non-smoking Columbo he quickly turns up a few odd facts about the deceased, and by the time of the second body he is quite curious. Although there are two bodies, not much actually happens. The Cardinal in question is both a bird in Qwill's newfound garden, and Cardinal Worsley who was played by the school master.

The quiet pace and gently engaging chats and antics of the cats make this a perfectly enjoyable though hardly remarkable cosy. There is plenty of backstory interaction with characters presumably known from previous books. ( )

http://home.comcast.net/~ktoonen/summ... ( )

A play is in the works up North. Koko helps Qwill find the killer of the nasty director. ( )