Claws and Effect is the ninth book in this series about Mary Minor Harristeen (Harry), the postmaster of Crozet, Virginia and her three pets: Tee Tucker, a welsh corgi; Pewter, a fat grey cat; and Mrs. Murphy, a pretty tabby cat. Harry lives on her family farm with the pets, three horses, a possum and a fox. Her weekdays are spent at the post office, which is naturally the town's gossip vortex, with her assistant.

The hook for the series is that the animals can talk amongst themselves and can understand when the humans talk -- however, the humans can't understand the animals. The mystery is set at Crozet Hospital, where several murders take place. Add a stop on the Underground Railroad, close attention to small-town relationships, and some fox hunting, and you have a warm story, best read on a rainy day with a cuppa near at hand -- or on an airplane.

This is the best book in the series. Previous books suffer from three problems: (1) they are frequently interrupted with Brown's awkward libertarian social commentary -- in this book, the commentary is spread out among the characters and flows much more naturally; (2) the animals frequently engage in unbelievable behavior (in an earlier book in the series, the cats drove a Porsche) -- in this book, the animal behavior is limited to things real animals do; and (3) previous books have not been "fair" mysteries. This book just barely qualifies as a fair mystery, but it does in fact qualify. Reccommended.