PROBABLE CLAWS
by Clea Simon
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.