Readers who enjoy the prickly pleasure of stepping into a strange alternate universe will welcome Simon's hypnotic second Blackie and Care mystery (after 2015's The Ninth Life), set in a blighted unnamed city. Bands of gangsters control the various neighborhoods, bartering is more common than the use of money, and the mostly illiterate masses have to scavenge to eke out a living. Pink-haired teen Carrie "Care" Wright, an apprentice private detective, navigates this treacherous world aided by Blackie, a cat she rescued from drowning. Blackie, the narrator, is no ordinary cat. His consciousness contains not only his feline instincts but also flashes of memories from his past life as a human. When a factory owner hires Care, who has been in charge of the detective agency since her mentor's murder, to shadow one of his workers, Blackie fears something isn't quite right. Since he can't talk, he can do little to warn Care of his misgivings. The novel perilously walks the line between dream and nightmare. - Publishers Weekly 1/23/2017 I consider Clea Simon to be an absolutely brilliant writer, regardless of what genre she writes in. Writing in a cat's voice is an art form, and few writers manage to do it well. In this series, Simon takes this art into a new realm. The way she sets scenes from Blackie's point of view, and the way she describes how he takes in the world around him, reflects not just a thorough understanding of feline behavior, but also a connection to the feline soul that I have rarely seen in other cat books. The best writers paint pictures with their words. In As Dark As My Fur, Clea Simon paints a sweeping emotional cityscape that will stay with you long after you put the book down.