Book Review: The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

Published August 10th 2010 by Delacorte Press (first published April 1st 2009)
ISBN 0385344171 (ISBN13: 9780385344173)
Edition Language: English
Hardcover, 287 pages

Actually finished a book!

I discovered this book at the public library, because...it's got a cat on the cover!  The story takes place in Germany, and the book begins with a most unusual and fantastic death in young Pia Kolvenbach life.  She grits out her school years as a pariah, trying to enjoy life with her English-born mother and German father. 

Then, Katharina Linden...and several other young girls...disappear!  In broad daylight, in the middle of a town festival, just like the girls that 'ran away' many years ago.  Coincidence, or the supernatural, as Pia and her kind-of friend Stefen believe?

Why the publisher put a cat on the cover?  Pluto, the black cat, makes a few appearances, and there is one spooky tall tale about Hans and the spooky cats that surround him one dark night.  But cats are only a sidebar to Helen Grant's novel, and it was still a great read.

This book is the first one that I've read since Manny and Chili Bruce joined the family.  The Hubby and I spend a lot of time playing with them, and snuggling with Angel and Da Boyz, and reading was put on hold.  Now that the dust is beginning to settle, I managed to read the book over the weekend while The Hubby watched football games, and the cats snoozed contentedly, albeit Angel in her beddy at one end of the table, and Manny and CB curled up together in the double-wide scratcher at the other end.

No cat may enter the center de-militarized zone without human approval!