Cat Spitting Mad

Cat Spitting Mad continues Shirley Rousseau Murphy's acclaimed, uniquely charming mystery series featuring a pair of precocious cats who have the amazing ability to read, speak, use the telephone, and solve crimes.

"I am a cat, Dulcie. A free spirit. A four-legged unencumbered citizen. I don't need to answer to any human."

Joe Grey is mad enough to spit! No matter what Clyde, his irritating human "owner," says, he's not keeping his paws off this case, not when Max Harper's life and the future of law enforcement in the town of Molena Point are at stake.

While Joe has certainly delighted in playing countless smug tricks on Max Harper, Molena Point's head lawman, he's never had anything but respect for the dedicated cop. In fact, Harper is the one human who makes Joe and Dulcie's sleuthing worth the trouble. Many of the culprits they've tracked down ended up behind bars thanks to Harper's tenacity and shrewdness.

Now Harper is in trouble. Big trouble. Two of his horseback-riding companions have been viciously murdered on the trail, and Dillon, the spunky young girl who accompanied them, is missing. All the evidence points to Harper, and he doesn't have a single witness -- at least not a human one! -- to vouch for his alibi.

Joe knows Harper is innocent and is hissing to prove it -- and to rescue his young friend Dillon before it is too late. Finding answers, however, promises to be the biggest challenge Joe and Dulcie have ever faced. They've got to keep their night-eyes sharp and their soft paws moving to avoid both a vicious killer and a hungry cougar prowling around the town's hills. Then there's the tortoiseshell kitten that's been left in their care. Though she shares their wonderful abilities, the kit's fearless curiosity takes them all into dangerous territory.

But there is one silver lining to the terrible cloud hanging over pretty Molena Point. Kate Osborne, Clyde's old girlfriend and close family friend of Dallas Garza, the outside investigator brought in on the Harper case, is back in town. To Joe this means an inside track on the murder investigation and -- almost as good! -- someone to distract Clyde from his dead-set determination to prevent feline meddling. To Dulcie, wise in the ways of women's hearts, it means Charlie, Clyde's freckled, redheaded current girlfriend, is free to spend some quality time lifting Max Harper's spirits and helping out with a few things that even the most talented cats can't do on their own, like driving a getaway car!

With backs up and claws bared, Dulcie and a spitting-mad Joe Grey must use all their cleverness and amazing talents to solve the case -- and keep their secret safe, too.

Shirley Rousseau Murphy was the author of twenty-one mysteries in the Joe Grey series, for which she won the Cat Writers’ Association Muse Medallion nine years in a row and received ten national Cat Writers’ Association Awards for best novel of the year. She was also a noted children’s book author and received five Council of Authors and Journalists Awards.