Laurie Cass Books in Order

If you want the true starting point: Lending a Paw → Tailing a Tabby → Borrowed Crime
If you want peak small-town coziness: Pouncing on Murder → Cat with a Clue → Wrong Side of the Paw
If you want later-series favorites: Gone with the Whisker → Checking Out Crime → The Crime That Binds
If you want the newest run: A Troubling Tail → No Paw to Stand On → Book 'Em, Eddie

Laurie Cass grew up in southwestern Michigan, and except for a year in Connecticut, she has spent her life in the Midwest. She graduated from Eastern Michigan University in the 1980s with a Bachelor of Science degree in geology, a credential she has cheerfully described as mostly unused. Even so, that training in paying attention to place seems to have stayed with her. Her books notice weather, roads, shorelines, and the rhythms of small towns.

Publishing came later.

Before her first mystery appeared, Cass spent about a decade writing seriously, learning the craft the long way. In an early interview under her Laura Alden name, she said she had six unpublished novels tucked away and was close to quitting after years of rejection. Then 2009 brought a layoff from her day job, and, unexpectedly, an opening. A nudge toward an agent led to a contract, and the long private apprenticeship suddenly turned into a public writing career.

Her debut novel, Murder at the PTA, was published as Laura Alden and introduced Beth Kennedy, a bookseller, parent, and reluctant sleuth in Wisconsin. That series showed a lot of what would later define her work: ordinary people with jobs and obligations, local institutions that matter, and murders that feel rooted in everyday life instead of melodrama. It also earned an Agatha Award nomination for best first novel, a solid early sign that her blend of warmth and mystery had found readers.

Then came the cats.

As Laurie Cass, she launched the Bookmobile Cat Mysteries with Lending a Paw, and that series became her best-known home. The setup is hard to resist, librarian Minnie Hamilton driving a bookmobile through Chilson, Michigan, with Eddie, a rescue cat, repeatedly turning up where trouble is brewing. In Tailing a Tabby, Gone with the Whisker, Checking Out Crime, and No Paw to Stand On, Cass keeps the focus on community life as much as crime. Readers get lake town atmosphere, library routes, town gossip, and a heroine who is curious without becoming hard-boiled.

What people tend to like in Cass's fiction is its balance. The mysteries have real stakes, but the books never lose their sense of neighborliness. A suspicious accident, a missing patron, a shop owner with secrets, a badly timed rumor, these are the kinds of problems that grow into full cases in her hands. She is especially good at writing people whose work matters to them, librarians, shopkeepers, volunteers, and small business owners trying to keep things running while life gets messy. Eddie, of course, helps keep the mood lively.

Cass has also worked with Lorraine Bartlett on Dead, Bath, and Beyond, a Victoria Square mystery. That collaboration fits neatly with her strengths. She is drawn to stories about communities built around books, shops, services, and the people who keep those places going. Even when the plot turns toward murder, the center of gravity stays with everyday relationships, practical problems, and the quiet pleasure of watching a smart amateur figure things out.

These days she lives in northern Michigan with her husband and two cats, Wilbur and Georgie. When she is not writing, she has said she is often reading, working at her day job, gardening, or rowing. It sounds a little like one of her novels, busy, grounded, and close to home.