CAT IN THE DARK

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 1, 1999

Joe Grey and his ladyfriend Dulcie aren't just your ordinary feline detectives. Not only does Dulcie have a day job--she's the library cat for the Bay Area village of Molena Point--but, 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?

Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1999

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: 272

Publisher: HarperPrism

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1998

Categories: FICTION