'The excellent adventures of the aristocratic British feline .... James [who] puts his best paw forward to solve crimes while indulging in the finer things in life...
'James is enjoying life at Baron’s Chambers, the London apartment house where he shares a flat with his sometime handler, an American fine arts agent. But his deductive abilities will be put to the test when he’s called on to detect philatelic forgeries at Thwaites, one of the city’s great auction houses. The recently knighted cat also finds time to coach a croquet team, oversee rehearsals of a sequel to Cats, and help deliver a baby. Not to be outdone by cheesy actors or blundering attorneys, he makes his film debut and testifies in a criminal trial at the Old Bailey. But he has a special place in his heart for St. James’s Palace, the address he longs to call home...'
So we know the fey camp we are in. Here is another review:
'My subject today is Harriet Hahn’s delightful James the Connoisseur Cat, ....[1991] and recently released on Kindle.
'This James is a cat like no other. He is a British shorthair who lives at the Baron’s Chambers apartments, where his “job” is to evaluate potential tenants and weed out the undesirables. Fortunately for us, he takes a particular liking to the story’s narrator, and soon enough the two are spending their evenings enjoying a single-malt whiskey together (do not try this at home, at least not with your cat) and embarking on various adventures.
'James is what you might call a “great communicator.” He gets his point across by pointing his paws and nodding his head, and he shudders at the thought of killing a mouse. Oh, and when he wants someone to shut up, he puts his paw over their mouth (more cats should learn how to do this).
'This big gray cat is so influential he soon has the narrator taking him out for shopping trips in a bag customized with eye holes. He picks out his favorite pâté (which he enjoys a little too much) and has many other adventures, including [:]
'falling in love with a porcelain cat that has a secret
drumming up art sales for a friend
evaluating collectibles and identifying forgeries
acting, and
detecting.'
We do have some biographical data on the author:
'Harriet Hahn was born in Gatún, Panama, and grew up in Spokane, Washington. After attending Reed College in Portland, Oregon, she graduated from the University of Chicago, where she met her husband, Charles Hahn, with whom she later worked as an editor of the trade magazine he published in Latin America and the Caribbean. Due to Charles's avid interest in stamp collecting and British postal history, the Hahns traveled frequently to London. On one trip, they stayed at a small hotel that was inhabited by a delightful cat named James, who befriended Harriet and inspired her to write novels about a connoisseur cat.'
We have cover art:
And
James, Fabulous Feline: Further Adventures of a Connoisseur Cat (1993)
The silver-gray, aristocratic feline with extraordinary abilities proves his mettle again in this lighthearted follow-up to James, the Connoisseur Cat . Versatile James detects philatelic forgeries at Thwaites, the London auction house where he works. He also coaches a croquet team, supervises rehearsals of a sequel to the musical Cats , helps deliver a baby and tracks down precious statuettes in Argentina. Hahn's clipped, clean, no-nonsense prose invites readers to suspend disbelief while James struts his stuff as a film actor, sleuth, psychiatrist, set designer, minister at a wedding and star witness in a criminal trial at the Old Bailey. Although the human characters are two-dimensional props in an amusing feline extravaganza, cat-lovers will enjoy the antics of this likable, albeit snobbish adventurer...'
It occurred to me these books might be a hoax ( I mean the fact they were ever written). I have never seen them, but they show up in worldcat.org. Were it not for that I might suspect the author to be the Harriet Hahn who is a scientist doing research with cats. But that would be just too fabulous.
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