Book description
When cats start getting sick, feline-loving freelance writer Theda
Krakow suspects an accident is to blame. But her shelter-owning rocker
buddy Violet claims the contaminated kibble was poisoned. When Theda
starts looking at shelter politics she finds a number of people who
could have happily committed this heinous crime. The city shelter may be
backing down from a healthy pet initiative, a series of threatening
letters suggests a darker motive, and old-fashioned jealousy may factor
in as well. The pressure mounts as Thedaas editor grabs onto the idea of
a hot storyaand dangles a prime job as bait. But how can Theda
investigate when feelings run so high? As the music scene rallies to
raise funds to save the cats, Theda finds herself on the outs with both
her buddies and her longtime boyfriend Bill. And when sheas caught at a
murder scene, bloody scalpel in hand and only her beloved cat Musetta as
a witness to what really happened, Theda must scramble to find the real
killer before she, and Musetta, become the next victims. The only
eyewitness to a murder is a blood-spattered cat. Theda Krakow is having
a bad week. She's on the outs with her boyfriend Bill, who's too busy
running his new jazz club to coddle her. Her pals Violet and Caro, who
own the Helmhold House for Wayward Cats, have received a donation of
poisoned kibble. And her darling Musetta has tuna breath and badly needs
her teeth cleaned. Unfortunately, when Theda stops by the city shelter
to pick up her kitty after the procedure, Rachel the vet, gouged with a
scalpel, barely has time to gasp out an unintelligible word before she
expires, leaving the traumatized Musetta covered with blood. Fastidious
as any feline, Musetta licks off the blood, leaving no trace of
evidence. Theda, pet and scalpel in hand, is deemed the most likely
suspect. But getting fired from her freelance job at the Morning Mail
leaves her plenty of time to snoop around. Scrutinizing hate mail sent
to the city shelter and the cat haven, she begins to suspect a reforming
junkie chum, the vet's secret boyfriend, even Violet. Meanwhile, Musetta
naps on an afghan, naps on a window ledge, curls up in Theda's lap,
plays with a toy and meows for the attention Theda gives her in between
contemplating euthanasia proponents, club hangers-on and rival vets.
Journalist Simon (Cries and Whiskers, 2007) adores cats. This book is
for the similarly inclined. Clea Simon is a Massachusetts-based
writer, journalist and a regular contributor to the New York Times,
Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Ms., Rolling Stone and Salon.
com. She's the author of three nonfiction books, She lives in Cambridge,
MA, with her husband, the writer Jon S. Garelick, and their cat,
Musetta.
