Below is the complete list of Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of The Cat Who Books
Publication Order of Cat Who Short Story Collections Books
About The Cat Who
Lilian Jackson Braun’s The Cat Who… series follows veteran newspaper reporter James Mackintosh Qwilleran and two Siamese cats whose unusual behavior repeatedly directs him toward crimes that other people overlook. The novels combine traditional mystery plotting with small-town comedy, local history, domestic detail, and an affectionate but never entirely sentimental view of cats. Murders occur throughout the series, yet graphic violence remains largely offstage. Braun is more interested in motives, eccentric personalities, old resentments, and the secrets preserved within apparently respectable communities.
Qwilleran begins as a recovering alcoholic rebuilding both his career and personal life. His most recognizable features are his luxuriant moustache and the “Qwilleran twitch,” an unexplained sensation in his upper lip that often warns him something is wrong. Although he frequently works alongside police, he investigates through a journalist’s habits: asking conversational questions, listening for contradictions, studying local relationships, and noticing which details people avoid discussing.
Koko, formally named Kao K’o-Kung, is the more mysterious of Qwilleran’s Siamese companions. He displays an uncanny interest in particular books, newspaper clippings, objects, sounds, and words connected to a case. His clues are rarely straightforward, leaving Qwilleran to decide whether the cat has perceived something important or is merely behaving unpredictably. Yum Yum is gentler and less theatrical, but her thefts, hiding places, and reactions occasionally prove just as useful. Braun keeps Koko’s abilities deliberately ambiguous, allowing them to seem either supernatural or like the exceptional observations of an intelligent animal.
The opening books place Qwilleran in an unnamed metropolitan area and draw their settings from art criticism, interior design, antique dealing, theatre, and newspaper culture. After the first three novels appeared during the 1960s, the series entered a publication gap of nearly eighteen years. It returned in the 1980s with the same central trio, eventually developing into a much larger sequence.
A major transition occurs when Qwilleran inherits the Klingenschoen fortune and moves north to Moose County, a fictional region located “400 miles north of everywhere.” He settles primarily in Pickax, where inherited wealth gives him independence but also makes him responsible for a philanthropic foundation supporting local projects. The move transforms the series from urban mysteries into an extended portrait of small-town life.
Pickax supplies a broad recurring cast, including newspaper editor Arch Riker, librarian Polly Duncan, restaurateur Lois Inchpot, theatre director Fran Brodie, and numerous merchants, artists, historians, officials, and members of old Moose County families. Qwilleran’s relationship with Polly becomes one of the series’ longest personal threads. Their restrained companionship suits two independent people with established routines, although Qwilleran’s investigations and Polly’s professional interests sometimes pull them in different directions.
The Moose County novels frequently build mysteries from local institutions and traditions. Restaurants, hotels, museums, theatres, clubs, historic buildings, crafts, festivals, and family businesses become sources of both atmosphere and conflict. Qwilleran’s newspaper column allows Braun to introduce legends and community concerns while quietly placing clues among anecdotes that initially seem unrelated to the crime.
Publication order preserves Qwilleran’s gradual transition from financially struggling reporter to wealthy Pickax resident, along with the development of his friendships and his place within Moose County. Most central mysteries remain understandable on their own, but the recurring community gains richness through familiarity.
Braun completed twenty-nine full-length novels in the principal sequence. The Cat Who Smelled Smoke was announced as a further installment but was never completed or published, so it does not belong among the finished books. The existing series remains defined not simply by Koko’s clues, but by the detailed social world around them: a place where gossip, memory, architecture, food, and feline curiosity can all expose the truth.