"The Cat Who Walks Through Walls" by Robert A.Heinlein (1907-1988)

Publisher: New York: Berkley Books
Copyright: 1986
ISBN: 0425093328

"The Cat Who Walks Through Walls” (whose name happens to be Pixel) is the fifth book in the World as Myth series by Heinlein. It starts out as a mystery with a murder, but gets quite involved from that point on.

The murder itself take place in a restaurant, across the table from Dr. Richard Ames, who was waiting for his wife to come back to the table. The soon-to-corpse had sat down at the table uninvited to ask Ames if he would murder somebody for him. What follows is a chase that essentially takes up 2/3 of the book, as everybody it seems wants to kill Ames, but nobody knows why-especially Ames. Ames also doesn’t know why the man was killed at his table, why the body was disposed of so quickly, and a host of other questions.

While Ames and his wife are busy trying to escape a few more attempts are made on their lives, and this deepens the mystery even more, to make an interesting tale that will easily entertain.

As was the case in “The Number of the Beast" we are introduced to the world of as myth scenario approximately 2/3 to 3/4 of the way through the book, and this is where things get slightly confusing as the whole storyline behind the world is myth system is the time travel works, and you can visit alternate universes at the same time. This is something that those of you who read “The Number of the Beast” would have been introduced to.

When reading the series it is best to start with “Methuselah's Children" then go onto "Time Enough for Love", and finally “The Number of the Beast" before tackling this book or a lot of the references will not make any sense whatsoever as a lot of the characters in the other books appear in this novel, and they help to explain things. In addition scenarios that previously encountered in the other novels appear in this one as well to form part of the backstory.

Surprisingly though Pixel himself or herself (I don't believe it says) doesn’t play a big role in this novel, but still it’s a good linking feature.