Note: The title of this book has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers as the book itself isn't available in English (yet). The original title reads Mitternachtskatzen #3: Der König der Federträger.
Book three time! Spoilers ahead.
Nova, Henry and their cat friends return in this third installment. With the evil Scottish cat king Fergus trying to take over the cat kingdoms, the felidix and their friends have only one possible way to defeat him: to put together a magical collar to contain Fergus' power and reign. But first they will need to find the parts in order to make this collar, and Fergus has spies everywhere. Will they succeed?
Yeah, still about as fun and solid as the last installment. Not the most original and not fantastic or anything, but I do find these books to be very enjoyable to read if I'm in for some lighthearted feline fantasy fun. Not every story needs to be the most complex or amazing in order to be enjoyable.
This book also really feels like a continuation of the last book. The first book was largely setup, if I remember correctly, introducing us to the world of the felidix, and this book pretty much directly continues the story of book two, with our heroes having to stop Fergus. There is also a subplot of Nova wanting to free her father, who has been wrongfully put into prison. Both plots are enjoyable and the stakes do get pretty high sometimes.
The characters are still enjoyable and decently-written, the plots had me invested, and I like how this feels like a decent semi-conclusion for the series. There is at least one more installment to follow after this one, but if things ended here it would still be a pretty okay ending to the series. Most subplots so far have been tied up by now and Fergus has (at least temporarily) been defeated.
If I do have some criticism, for one it's that I still am not sure if the portrayal of the Scottish cats here is appropriate, with most of the Scottish cats being seen as evil brutes and ruffians. There is literally only one good Scottish cat throughout this entire series so far, and it just feels like a negative stereotype it's trying to enforce or something. This could've easily been fixed by making it clear that not all (or most) Scottish cats are like this, particularly by introducing a few more non-evil and non-brutish Scottish cats. But (aside from the one I mentioned earlier, Angus) we get none.
Another thing is that the plot does feel a bit far-fetched at times. I get it, it's a "find the McGuffins" quest to put together the collar to save the day, yada yada. But at times I wonder if there aren't other ways in which Fergus could be defeated. Yes, obviously he has some level of power and magic over the cats. But the thing is...these are still cats. Which are small and pretty fragile animals. If they could procure a gun or some other human weapon they could easily just kill Fergus that way and free the cats from his rule. It's never stated in the text that this wouldn't work. Fergus' magic is never said to be able to repel bullets or other weapons, so why they don't just go after him with human weapons just kinda break the world-building for me.
I get that they want to keep the fantasy elements and whimsy and childishness by using a magic object to defeat the villain, but then they at least should've properly established that human weapons won't be able to defeat Fergus.
And, again, they do state that he has magic, so this excuse could be used. But the problem is that Fergus' magic is never established or explained very well, and again they never state that the cat king's magic would protect him against human weapons. So I don't think the "we must keep the fantasy/whimsical elements" and "we must keep things child-friendly" excuses apply if it goes against straight up logic. Then they should've bothered to establish that human weapons don't work.
Oh well, overall still a pretty fun and solid read. Just don't think too hard about it.
Rating: 3.5/5
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