Review: The Tabby in Black, by Mandy Morton

Description

Chocks away! as our feline detectives investigate some sticky situations at the local chocolate factory in Catberry-on-the-Brink.
Up at the Manor House, the family is at war as dark secrets are uncovered in The Tabby in Black chocolate selection box.
Will Hettie and Tilly manage to reach the bottom layer before a murderer
strikes? Did Horace Catberry really choke on a Mog Nob biscuit? And will the
Goth Band Gums and Noses get to support The Travelling Whoopsies on their next tour?
Join Hettie and Tilly as they unwrap the mysteries swirling around the Catberry family in this bitter-sweet assortment of truth and lies

My Review

Thanks to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for organising this tour and to the author/publishers for sending me a copy of this book.

I have never heard of this series, and I like cosy crime in the Golden Age tradition. It has cats! As detectives! Why have I not heard of this before? I need to read more of this series. There are 15 other books. Considering I spent three hours today reading this book (Sunday 26th April 2026 – this is my second review of the weekend) I think I could read them all in about 2 weeks. But I can’t afford to buy all of them.

Hettie and Tilly are two middle aged cats who run a detective agency in their small community and the surrounding area. During a wet winter, they have little work, until they’re called in by the owner of a local chocolate factory to investigate bodies found in a disused chocolate vat. More deaths and one kidnapping follows.

With their friend who works in a funeral home and another who lives in a shed at the bottom of the garden and acts as their driver, they discover the deep secrets of the Catberry family and attend a metal concert in a pub. They have a kebab, burgers and hotdogs after. There is a lot of eating in this book, important discussions happen in the local café, or Hattie and Tilly’s bed-sitting room. Pies feature heavily. I read it on a Sunday morning and the mention of a bacon bun made me so hungry. I didn’t include bacon in my shopping (see post from 26/04/2026 to understand that comment). I had cheese on toast instead. I do want a ham doorstop sandwich at some point next week though. Probably Friday (1st May) after swimming, when I get my PIP.

The Catberry’s are obviously a version of the Cadbury and other Victorian confectionary dynasties, with their big house, model village of tiny terraces and multigenerational employees. The author mentions in the acknowledgements that she’s interested in the Victorian industrialists and the complex family dynamics involved.

I can’t tell what decade this book is supposed to be nominally set in, the 1950s, 1990s or 2020s. There are goth metal bands, the bakers sing favourites from the 60s, Hattie and Tilly have cheese triangles on toast most days for breakfast, and ladies at the residential home have pottery or aerobics classes and watch a Miss Marple equivalent in the evening, while Hettie and Tilly do their washing in a twin tub and the telly has two channels and they watch shows from the London Palladium.

This book was a fun read. I enjoyed the mystery and the cats. I’m probably going to look for one or two more at some point (my TBR pile is dangerously high right now). If you enjoy cosy crime in the Golden Age or Midsummer Murders vein, and cats, I recommend it.

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Author Information

Mandy Morton began her professional life as a musician. More recently, she
has worked as an arts journalist for national and local radio. She lives with her partner in Cambridge and Cornwall where there is always a place for a long haired tabby cat.

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