Mrs. Murphy Mysteries/YMMV

• Never Live It Down: Fair once slept with "Boom-Boom", a rival of Harry, while they were still married (albeit separated). Let's just say, nobody in the series lets him forget he ever did this.
• Took a Level In Kindness: Mim's family. Considering how positively they are portrayed later in the series it is a shock to see what they were like in the first few books.

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• The time frame is always a YMMV moment for most people; originally they were intended to take place over the course of several seasons, so far the series has taken place over 5 years.

Here is my ideal time line of based on the seasons per book:

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• • Wish You Were Here -- Spring [Year 1]
  • Rest in Pieces -- Mid Summer
  • Murder at Monticello -- Late Summer to Early Autumn
  • Pay Dirt -- Autumn
  • Murder, She Meowed -- Winter to Early Spring [Year 2]
  • Murder on the Prowl -- Late Spring
  • Cat on the Scent -- Summer
  • Pawing Through the Past -- Late Autumn
  • Claws and Effect -- Winter
  • Catch as Cat Can -- Spring [Year 3]
  • The Tail of the Tip-Off -- Summer
  • Whisker of Evil -- Autumn
  • Cat's Eyewitness -- Late Autumn to Early Winter
  • Sour Puss -- Spring to Mid Summer [Year 4]
  • Puss n' Cahoots -- Late Summer
  • The Purrfect Murder -- Early Autumn
  • Santa Clawed -- Early Winter
  • Cat of the Century -- Late Winter to Early Spring [Year 5]
  • A Hiss of Death -- Spring to Summer

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• • Some things that were used as a key-point for this idealistic time line are the seasonal references - in most books the time of year is made evident with in the first few sentences. In some books there are time progressions of no more then a few days, in some instances it can be upwards to a week or more. A good example is of smaller time skips like Santa Clawed which takes place in less then 2 weeks shortly after the start of the story as by the end its only a day or two away from the holidays. One or two of the stories have had lengthy time skips like in Murder at Monticello the story starts off in mid-summer, progresses slowly to late summer, and ends in the early days of autumn.
  • The years are not truly defined as to be able to fit into 'any day' reading. However based on subject matter in Pay Dirt and Murder, She Meowed we can assume that its set sometime in the mid/late 1990's and based on subject matter delivered in Catch as Cat Can its really safe to assume the later part of the 90's is appropriate, now taking into account the talk of the New Millennium in Cat's Eyewitness we can pin-point the date to be around the end of the 90's. This being all taken into account the rough guess is that it starts in 1997 and ends in 2000.