Claws and Effect, Volume 9 (Mrs. Murphy)

What do you get when you take an acclaimed author and pair her with a writer of the feline persuasion? A fiendishly clever mystery series that is the cat's meow.

Now Rita Mae Brown and Sneaky Pie Brown have done it again: concocted a purrfectly ingenious mystery that only a clever puss could untangle. And this time out, as murder makes its rounds at a hospital, tiger cat Mrs. Murphy must pounce on every clue to save her human from a coldly calculating killer.

As winter puts tiny Crozet, Virginia, in a deep freeze, everyone seems to be suffering from a case of the winter blahs, including postmistress Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen, who knows things must be dull if the hottest topic of conversation is a chain letter from the mysterious Sister Sophonisba. Even Harry's cats, Mrs. Murphy and Pewter, and her corgi Tee Tucker, haven't been able to dig up any dirt lately. But life in this small Southern town is about to heat up....

The first hint of trouble comes when Hank Brevard, the plant manager of Crozet Hospital, and head nurse Tussie Logan let drop a few remarks that hint at a hospital in turmoil. Then a malicious comment by the hospital's director suggests that there's bad blood between him and his star surgeon, handsome Dr. Bruce Buxton. Still, no one takes any of it seriously until Hank Brevard turns up dead in the hospital boiler room.

Harry, who can't resist a mystery, no matter how dangerous, decides to do some investigating of her own. What she finds is that the hospital is a hotbed of secrets, a closed little world where ego, jealousy, and illicit love often collide.

But it's Mrs. Murphy, roaming the netherworld of Crozet Hospital, who sniffs out the most telling fact: a secret room in the old section that dates back to the time of the Underground Railroad. Then Harry is attacked and another doctor is executed in cold blood.

Now the usually mild-mannered postmistress vows to bring the killer to justice. But when Harry gets too close to the truth, the culprit prescribes another premeditated murder. And only a quick-witted cat and her animal pals stand between Harry and a homicidal maniac who means to ensure that she carries what she knows to the grave.

Rita Mae Brown is the bestselling author of Rubyfruit Jungle, In Her Day, Six of One, Southern Discomfort, Sudden Death, High Hearts, Bingo,, Starting from Scratch: A Different Kind of Writers' Manual, Venus Envy, Dolley: A Novel of Dolley Madison in Love and War, Riding Shotgun, Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser, Loose Lips, and Outfoxed. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, she lives in Afton, Virginia.

Sneaky Pie Brown, a tiger cat born somewhere in Albemarle County, Virginia, was discovered by Rita Mae Brown at her local SPCA. They have collaborated on eight previous Mrs. Murphy mysteries: Wish You Were Here; Rest in Pieces; Murder at Monticello; Pay Dirt; Murder, She Meowed; Murder on the Prowl; Cat on the Scent; and Pawing Through the Past, plus Sneaky Pie's Cookbook for Mystery Lovers.