One of the oddities of the world is that what’s popular in one country may not be popular in another country. In 1989, the novel Felidae by Akif Pirinçci became a bestseller in Germany. The protagonist of this novel is a European shorthair cat named Francis. The novel, written from a cat’s perspective, shows Francis trying to solve a mysterious series of feline murders in his neighborhood.

Following the success of Felidae, the author wrote two more cat detective stories to create a Felidae trilogy. Pirinçci’s second cat mystery was titled Francis, Felidae II (1993) and the third, Cave Canem (Latin for “beware the dog”), was published in 1999. Curiously, Felidae was translated into at least 17 languages, including English, but the English edition is no longer in print. Even a 1994 animated film version of Felidae (which featured the voice of the Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer) never made it into US movie theaters or onto video.

If you’re curious about this book, you might have to hunt up used copies on Amazon or eBay, and you might need to buy the German or French edition in case you can’t find a rare English edition.

To read more about Francis the cat detective, click here.

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January 10, 2014  
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