Rambling About.. Something The Cat Dragged In by Charlotte MacLeod

Title: Something The Cat Dragged In Author: Charlotte MacLeod Publication: 1 September 1983 - Doubleday // August 1984 - Avon (paperback) // 6 November 2012 - MysteriousPress (digital) Amazon Description: An unpleasant man in every respect, university professor Herbert Ungley is exceedingly vain. One morning, his landlady catches her cat coming in with Ungley’s hairpiece between its teeth. It’s clear something has happened to the old grouch, because he would never be caught without his toupee. Ungley is found in the yard behind his social club, with his head bashed in and his baldness plain for the world to see. Although the police are content to call it an accident, sleuthing horticulturalist Peter Shandy is unconvinced, and finds there are too many unanswered questions. How did Ungley come to have such a bulging bank account? Who was Ungley’s long-lost heir, and what did he have to do with the professor’s lost hair? And whose is the second body in the woods? Shandy must answer these questions and more if he’s to find who pulled the rug out from the balding corpse.

First Lines: "Edmund! You know better than that. Dragging in some poor, dead creature just as I've finished mopping the floor."
Faves on 4s: 
14% - Anybody who'd take the trouble to stack forty-eight paper clips in neat rows of six apiece within their little box would not be apt to leave the sofa pillows askew.
44% - "The organ may be gone, but the music remains. That's what my great-aunt Mabel used to say after they took out her whatevers."
74% - "You deserve a slap on the back, Ottermole. Keep it up. Try the pumpkin pie."
84% - The chief regarded the warrant fondly. He must have been yearning for years to wave one of these under some miscreant's nose.

Ramble: Before this blog officially started I wasted the time (and, likely, tested the patience) of the handful of readers I had at my diet/health blog at the time. I never seemed to have anything worthwhile to say there that was on-topic so I would fill the space with whatever I was doing when I wasn't exercising and watching what I ate -- so, pretty much, reading. I started this in December 2014 and the first book I rambled about was the first book in Charlotte MacLeod's Peter Shandy series -- Rest You Merry. Something The Cat Dragged In is the fourth book in the series and I have six more to go. I'm stretching them out as much as I can since there won't ever be any more but it's hard because I'm still so madly in love with Peter Shandy -- and, as the series progresses, with his boss.
I mostly read my paperback version but pulled the "Faves on 4s" from my digital copy since it seemed like every page that ended in 4 in the actual book was riddled with spoilers. To quote Thorkjeld Svenson: URRGH!
Actually, all of my favorites could easily have been Svenson-centric this time around even though he only made a smattering of appearances. He's quite the quotable fellow.

25%

51%

89%

90%

See? Isn't he just .... everything?

All in all, I loved this book just as I've loved everything else of MacLeod's that I've read so far. Not only is Peter Shandy still adorable and Thorkjeld Svenson is still a burning hunk of Viking hotness, but we also get to know some of the secondary characters from previous books a bit better and are introduced to some new characters that I certainly hope to see again. Likely not to happen in the next installment since it's supposed to take place off campus, but the sixth one, hopefully....

And now I suppose I should read one of the ARCs I've recently acquired. Or start another MacLeod series (I have two started and two not). Urrgh.