Category Archives: Unsolved

328G: Rich Cat And Poor Cat in New Orleans

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Trying to remember title of a children’s fiction book set in New Orleans. Read in the 80s. One rich white fluffy groomed cat and one thin scruffy chimney sweep cat. Illustrations in black-and-white. Title may have been in blue foil. White cat may have lived on St. Charles Avenue.

Illustrations may have been somewhat similar to Black and White illustrations in Roald Dahl’s  books. Shaded gray, a little messy.

328F: Terrorist plot foiled by mismatched federal agents

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I listened to an audiobook from a library a couple years ago and have been searching for several years for it, but have been unable to find it. The library has torn itself apart trying to find it and I have physically gone through every audiobook but still can’t find it.

Here is what I remember:
The book starts out in Washington.  A terrorist plot is discovered by a female agent, FBI?, and is brought to the appropriate gov agency. The director knows that this is an extremist op and calls in a recently retired/parted CIA or some other black ops agent.  He has had his fill and is reluctant to take the mission but makes a deal that  this really will be his last mission.  He grudgingly accepts the mission and they are sent undercover to Europe/England to track down and kill the terrorist quietly. I think it was sanctioned by the President. He is an “off the books” guy and is not tied down by following the law while the female agent is by the books. She slowly learns what it takes to accomplish their mission and slowly warms to the guy. They have to use fake names, fake credits, and stay off the grid while tracking the terrorist, as I think the terrorists found out about it and began tracking them. I remember they try to buy some guns from some Eastern European gangsters and get into a shootout in a London garage when the deal goes bad. He has to use his contacts to get around and to track terrorists. I know they rented a seedy hotel room and he went out to get food and a burner phone and someone came to attack them while she was alone. They had to deal with the underworld trying to get info on the terrorist. I think the book ends when they catch-up with the terrorist attack around the London eye(ferris wheel?). The terrorist may have been a suicide bomber with a dirty bomb, but can’t remember for sure..
For some reason I thought it was written by a female author but I have searched every female action/suspense writer and have not found it.  All I listen to is spy/action novels and the title must have popped out when scanning the titles but it wasn’t obvious.

328E: Piano player from 1910’s meets girl from present

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I read this book sometime in 80’s or early 90s. A young girl recently graduated from high school or boarding school is invited to spend the summer before college with a distant cousin who lives in an old house somewhere in the Midwest. I believe the girl is recently orphaned and has been left financially set. She starts to hear a piano playing at night and when she dons an Edwardian dress one night, She meets and falls in love with a young man from the 1910’s who loves ragtime music. I can’t remember if they meet through time slip or if he is a ghost. When she finds out he left for Europe on the eve of World War I, she decides to delay college and travel to Europe to find out what happened to him or perhaps find him. I remember her wearing bell bottoms. Been looking for this book for a long time and would appreciate any leads.

328D: Woman Offended By Man’s Offer To Take Care Of Her Needs

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I’m looking for a contemporary romance novel that I read sometime between Sept. 1983 and Sept. 1984. A woman overhears a man (just married husband maybe) tell someone he can take care of her or her needs. She becomes offended and flies to Paris or London to learn culinary skills. She returns to the US and becomes an inn keeper. Meanwhile, he’s looking for her. When he finally finds her, there is a snowstorm at the inn. One of the guests is a young girl who locks her in a little room, I believe in between two fireplaces. He helps out around the inn. When he once again says he can take care of her and or her needs, she gets offended again.
There is nothing exceptional about this book. The misunderstanding is really contrived, but for some reason it’s driving me crazy.

328C: Where Did My Disappearing Woman Go?

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I have been searching several years for a book whose title and author I cannot remember. My recollection of the plot is sketchy, but I do remember the basic concept.

  • Probably read it in the 80s. Maybe early 90s
  • Female author.
  • Likely bought the book because I recognized author’s name, so probably not a rookie.
  • She was a story teller who used humor sometimes.
  • The basic theme was about a woman (age uncertain) who felt as though she was disappearing, bit by bit. Disappearing as in not being noticed/relevant/whatever.
  • My fuzzy recollection is that others couldn’t see that this was happening to her.
  • Vague recollection of book cover art: a woman was portrayed mostly as a real person. But some of her picture was composed of dotted lines indicating graphically that part of her had disappeared/was disappearing.
  • I’ve Googled my brains out. Lists of female authors writing in the 1970-1990 era. Also lists of best sellers. Maybe my book was a flop.
  • I’ve consulted librarians.
  • I’ve posted this weird quest on Facebook, since I have many friends there who are voracious readers.

How vague is that?!
Can you help me find this?

328B: Learning How Different Animals Sleep

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I’m hoping for some help finding a book I remember from my childhood that I can’t seem to find anywhere online.
It’s a book about a little boy who teaches the reader how different animals sleep.
I believe that the cover has a blue frame and a picture of the boy sleeping, possibly with one of the animals, like a giraffe or a bear.
In one part of the story, he sleeps with the giraffes or the horses standing up.
I was born in the late 80s, so I imagine it was a book from around the late 80s or early 90s.
That’s really all I remember.
Thank you for your help!

328A: The Little Girl Who Wouldn’t Go To Bed

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I’m looking for a book that I loved when I was little. I was born in 1981 and had the book when I was around 3 or 4 years old. It was called “The Little Girl Who Wouldn’t Go To Bed” or “The Little Girl That Didn’t Want To Go To Bed” maybe? Not sure on the title. But I remember a lot about the book …

Every page was illustrated. In the beginning of the book the little girl doesn’t want to go to bed and her mother says something like, “Very well then, but father and I are going to sleep so you’ll be all alone.”
The whole rest of the book has the little girl going to all these different spots in the house to play – on one page her doll is asleep, on another all her stuffed animals are asleep, she goes from room to room of the house but all of her toys are asleep. She goes to her dollhouse and the dolls in there are asleep too. After going from room to room to find all of her toys sleeping she gives up and goes to bed too. Hope you can help me to find this book.

327Z: Insectoid Alien Princess Becomes A Christian

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I’ve tried to find this book for the last thirty years. It’s an old sci-fi novel.
What I remember of the plot:
Advanced insectoid winged aliens invade earth, they are very random and do things like cure disease and pour wealth from spaceships in one city, and then fire bomb/laser death another.
Hero is ex government something, like a soldier or bodyguard like secret service.
He ends up at some point at a rebel base where they are trying to fight the invaders, but are wounded and starving.
He gets captured by the aliens, and is enslaved by one of the very high ranking aliens, a Princess or equivalent, who is spoiled rotten, vain and very cruel. She has a sort of partner who is a warrior, but she outranks him and treats him badly.
They talk, but also use dancing like bees to convey extra texture to the conversation, she mocks her partner/mate because he is not graceful when “talking” by dancing.
She ends up trying to bang the human out of boredom, which is painful for him, and he jumps off her floating ship/palace to try to kill himself after suffering at her hands for a while.
She makes her mate/fiance fly to rescue him, but he signals that the price he will want in return will be terrible.
At some point she is stripped of power and exiled.
She meets the hero at a rebel camp some time later, and she has been de-winged and blinded by her kind.There is a church of anti-Christ that has something to do with what is going on.
Alien princess becomes a Christian.