The Cat, the Devil, and Lee Fontana

The author of the award-winning Joe Grey mystery series--a writer hailed for her "magical whimsy and deft writing" (Cats magazine) who "has raised the stakes of the feline sleuth genre" (Kirkus Reviews)--teams up with her husband to conjure a charming supernatural adventure involving the devil, a thief, a bet, and a spirited phantom cat.

To the devil, the span of human life is as brief as spit on the wind. But the challenge of playing with flawed humans, like a cat toying with a mouse, is endlessly amusing. However, if the devil loses a wager, he will harass a person's descendants until he eventually gets his due. Which is why he is tormenting Lee Fontana.

The night before Lee is paroled, Satan terrifies and tempts the thief with the promise of one more successful robbery. But Lee has a secret ally looking out for him. The prison cat, a ghost, will tail the ex-con on his dangerous mission--an adventure that moves across the country and spins far beyond our present world into the vast realms of afterlife, a story in which ghostly Misto revels in his added ethereal powers and expanded freedom.

In addition to her popular Joe Grey mystery series for adults, which have received eleven national Cat Writers' Association Awards for the best novel of the year, Shirley Rousseau Murphy has written many children's and young adult books, for which she has received five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards. Two of her children's books were written in collaboration with her husband, Pat. Pat spent his career as a US federal Probation Officer in California and in Oregon, as the Chief US Probation Officer in Panama, and as Chief US Probation Officer for the Northern District of Georgia. After he retired the Murphys returned to their home in California, settling on the Central California coast with a view of the hills and the sea.