Cat in the Dark - Hardcover

Murphy, Shirley Rousseau

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0061050962 ISBN 13: 9780061050961

Publisher: Harper, 1998

Synopsis

I'm a cat," said Dulcie. "Of course I worry, Joe. What is the cops catch one of us opening a skylight and masterminding a robbery? The tabloids will love it. Every nut in the country will read about the trained burglar-cat...Or, heaven forbid the talking cat..."

Dulcie is right it be worried, for the precious peace of sleepy little Molena Point is threatened as never before.

There's a new cat in town: Azreal, a renegade tom with a penchant for voodoo, a scorn for his fellow felines, and a nasty hatred of humans. And he's quickly escalating toward murder most foul.

Dulcie and Joe Grey both knew the score--they have seen Azreal in action. His nocturnal depredations threaten the very fabric of their lives. Dulcie could lose her spot as library cat. Even the evening handout for Jolly's Deli is at risk.

But how can they expose the criminal without letting millions of ordinary, untrustworthy humans in on the secret that certain select cats can think and talk?

Cat in the Dark is the newest foray into the human-haunted world of Joe Gray and Dulcie, whose uncanny abilities. and extraordinary intuitions are helping to make small town crime a losing proposition. So far.

Joe Gray, P.I.

It was not until the next morning that Joe, brushing past Clyde's bare feet, leaping to the kitchen table and pawing open the morning Gazette, learned more about the burglary at Medder's Antiques. He read the article as Clyde stood at the stove frying eggs. Two over easy for Clyde, one sunny-side up with sardines for Joe. It had taken a bit of doing to get Clyde trained, but the effort has been worth it.

"What are you reading?" Clyde picked Joe up as if he were a bag of flour, so he could see the paper.

Joe dangled impatiently, twitching his tail, as Clyde read.

Clyde sat down at the table and dumped pepper on his eggs. "So this is why you've been scowling and snarling all morning, this burglary."

I haven't been scowling and snarling," Joe slurped up a sardine, dipping it in egg yoke. "Why would I bother with a simple break and enter? The police can handle the simple stuff."

Clyde raised an eyebrow.

"So there's a new cat in the village. So are you satisfied? It's nothing to worry you, nothing to fret over."

Clyde was silent a moment, watching him. "I take it this is a tomcat. What did he do, come onto Dulcie?"

Joe glared at him. The stupid humans could be all too perceptive at the wrong times.

About this title

About the Author

Shirley Rousseau Murphy is the author of twenty mysteries in the Joe Grey series, for which she has won the Cat Writers’ Association Muse Medallion nine years running, and has received ten national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year. She is also a noted children’s book author, and has received five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards. She lives in Carmel, California, where she serves as full-time household help to two demanding feline ladies.

Reviews

YA-Cat lovers have long acknowledged the special qualities of felines, even those that don't speak, read, open locks, or act like private investigators. Joe Grey and Dulcie can do all of the above and more. While making a nighttime stroll around the quiet village of Molena Point, Joe and Dulcie witness a cat and a slovenly dressed man committing a robbery. The strange cat, Azrael, appears to be as evil as his name implies, and turns out to share the same unique abilities of Joe and Dulcie. The man turns out to be the brother of Mavity Flowers, one of the hard-working older women in the village. The two resident cats, faced with identifying the culprit, come across an investment scam, three deaths, and significant twisting of the plot. Human characters provide the realism in this mysterious fantasy that includes romantic interests and small-town squabbles. Dulcie's owner, Wilma Getz, and Joe's owner, Clyde Damen, serve as the major human players. As mutual friends their interactions bring the different parts of the plot together and provide a foundation for the series. The contemporary setting of Molena Point, complete with nightly fogs, adds just the right atmosphere for the midnight sleuthing of cats and dastardly humans. For teens who like fantasy, mystery, or cats, this title offers all three.
Pam Johnson, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Modern-day descendants of ancient Celtic talking cats, Joe Grey and Dulcie make their hardback debut in this cat-chy tale (after three paperback adventures: Cat Raise the Dead, etc.). When the feline duo witnesses a series of burglaries in their California seaside village, they are intrigued. Finding the human culprit and his accomplice, an alluringly evil black cat named Azrael, who also talks, proves to be easy. After Joe Grey and Dulcie accuse him of the crimes, Azrael tells them the thefts are nothing, considering that soon three people will be murdered. Joe Grey and Dulcie know that a number of newcomers have recently moved to the area, including a cat-hating librarian, a shifty financial adviser, a vengeful Georgia couple and an austere handywoman. All of them are acting oddly?even for humans: the librarian is trying to oust Dulcie from her position as official library cat; the financial adviser is wining and dining a local golddigger; the Georgians clandestinely photocopy their local aunt's financial portfolio; and the handywoman leads a hidden life. When the Georgia couple's bodies are found in the library's garden and the adviser is also murdered, the intrepid felines are on the case, much to the dismay of Joe's human keeper, contractor and car mechanic Clyde. As the cats surreptitiously survey the police investigation, they realize Azrael's missing human companion holds the key to the deaths. Rousseau writes a fast-paced tale, and she has a way with her cat scenes, but her mystery claws aren't as sharp as those of Rita Mae Brown or Lillian Jackson Braun (reviewed above).
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Joe Grey and his ladyfriend Dulcie aren't just your ordinary feline detectives. Not only does Dulcie have a day jobshe's the library cat for the Bay Area village of Molena Pointbut, like Joe Grey, she has powers and abilities far beyond those of ordinary literary cats. Joe and Dulcie can talk to each other and to their respective human housemates, librarian Wilma Getz and rehabber Clyde Damen (who, in the course of one particularly heated debate with Joe Grey, snarls, ``What does a cat know about the value of real estate?''); they can read books and newspapers; they can toss suspects' apartments and make anonymous phone tips to perplexed Captain Max Harper. And it's a good thing this crime-fighting duo, in their hardcover debut, are so well-equipped, because the forces of evil arrayed against them are formidable. There's a sneak thief who breaks into Molena Point's cozy shops by night and empties their cash registers. There's the thief's feline partner, Azrael, who taunts Dulcie and Joe Grey with their inexperience and prophesies multiple murder. There's investments counselor Winthrop Jergen, who just may be swindling Wilma's old friend Mavity Flowers out of her life's savings. And eventually, long after non-infatuates have given up hope of any sensation stronger than a decorous romantic triangle among Clyde, his handyman girlfriend Charlie (Wilma's niece) Getz, and flashy library computer expert Bernine Sage, there's the business of those murders. Now that Murphy's raised the stakes of the feline sleuth genre, what's next? Burned-out cats who drive police cruisers and count the days till their retirement? -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Appearing for the first time in hardcover, this series (e.g., Cat Under Fire, HarperPrism, 1997) features cats who have emotions and intelligence, who talk to each other, and who investigate murder in a small California town. Depending on their frame of mind, readers will find this premise either silly and tedious or stimulating and charming, Two special felines, Dulcie and Joe Grey, spot the town's new, evil tomcat?wily, partnered with human robbers, and prophetic of three killings. The cats' owners play out the plot on another level, of course, but the two converge when owners and cats converse. A special treat, then, for cat mystery fanciers.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0061050962
• ISBN 13: 9780061050961
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272