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Summary
Summary
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.
Author Notes
Fiction author Shirley Rousseau Murphy grew up in Long Beach, California and majored in fine and commercial art at the San Francisco Art Institute. She has worked as a commercial artist and has exhibited paintings and sculptures extensively on the West Coast. She has also been a designer and an interior designer, as well as in a library in the Panama Canal Zone. Murphy has written several children's books, plus the fantasy novel The Catswold Portal, the Dragonbards trilogy, and the popular Joe Grey mystery series, for which she has won eight Muse Medallion awards from the Cat Writers' Association. She and her husband live in Carmel, California.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-Cats Joe, Dulcie, and Kit understand, speak, and read English, and they are veteran sleuths in Molena Point, CA. Someone has framed the chief of police for the murder of two friends and the probable kidnapping of the child who was riding with them. Furthermore, someone is killing cats in San Francisco. The main characters are excellent spies, gaining clues by hiding under desks, eavesdropping when they are supposed to be asleep, and carefully moving evidence to trap a villain. Although many characters and motives are related to earlier books in the series, it is not necessary to have read them to enjoy this mysterious flight of fancy.-Claudia Moore, W. T. Woodson High School, Fairfax, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Debonair detective Joe Grey lives and sleuths along northern California's rugged coast, in the quaintÄbut dangerousÄvillage of Molena Point. In this sixth of Murphy's books named for Joe, passions rise and two women exsanguinate on a mountain riding trail, their throats slashed, while their mounts run free in an ecstasy of fear. Dashing, silver-haired Joe has enough trouble just getting along with his housemate, crusty car mechanic Clyde Damen. But add bloody murder and the kidnapping of a terrified teenager, and Joe gets cat spitting mad! When Clyde's best friend, police chief Max Harper, is named top suspect and suspended from his job, Joe goes ballistic. Aided by his friends Dulcie and Kit, Joe stalks the killer in the dark niches of the crumbling Pamillon EstateÄsite of a potentially profitable land ventureÄwhere a wild cougar also lurks. Up the coast in San Francisco, gorgeous Kate Osborne has cause to worry when a murderer escapes from prison and comes after her. In addition to humans, someone is killing the cats of San Francisco. Speaking of cats: fans of Joe Grey recognize that he (and Dulcie and Kit) are felines themselves, though capable of communicating with select humans. Cat lovers will cuddle right up to Joe and his pals, but the story has plenty of murder and mayhem for those who like to take their detective fiction straight up. (Jan. 8) FYI: This series has won the Cat Writers Association Muse medallion for three consecutive years. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Chestertons Father Brown once chided a dog-lover for acting as if the animals name were spelled backwards. Dog only knows what he would make of Murphys feline mysticism. This sixth installment of her fantasy-mysteries (Cat in the Dark, 1998, etc.) begins when the kitten ward of that sentient cat detective duo Joe Grey and Dulcie discovers the bodies of Helen Marner and her daughter Ruthie, whod been riding horses with now-vanished teenager Dillon Thurwell. Tracks, footprints, and weapon all point to Molena Point Chief of Police Max Harper as the perp. Although Harper and Joe may have had their differences, the cat knows the cop is being set up. Even worse for Harper, though, it looks as if a deadly conspiracy of fraud and murder-for-hire links the small towns police department and Crystal Ryder, one of Harpers new friends, to escaped convict Lee Wark, one of Harpers old enemies. Feline-friendly Kate Osborne, a former Molena Point resident, spots Wark stalking her at San Franciscos mysterious Cat Museum, whose board wants to buy the old Pamillon estate in Molena Point, where the kitten found evidence of the missing Dillon. But who exactly is selling the estate? And how does the non-Englishspeaking cougar prowling the Pamillon place fit in? Murphys fine writing can make her feline fantasy worthwhile. But this outing gets wrapped up in a tangle more arachnid than feline, with a huge multispecies castor clowderthat seems to have taken all its social cues from daytime drama.
Booklist Review
The sixth mystery featuring sentient, talking felines Joe Grey and Dulcie, now abetted in their investigations by the tortoise-shell kitten introduced in Cat to the Dogs, will have their fans wanting to down the sometimes scary, madcap tale in one gulp. Yet again, murder shocks the small town of Molena Point, California, but what gets Joe spitting mad is the fact that some lowlife has done a masterful job of framing Chief of Police Max Harper. Although Joe delights in his ability to disquiet the chief with anonymous phone tips, the crusty cat has a deep respect for Max. Add to the mix the 13-year-old girl who witnessed the murders and then disappeared, a puma roaming the wooded hills outside of town, and an escaped con who kills cats and hates Max, and the pace never falters. The felines work around the humans to solve the case, and, as usual, the cat-human interactions and repartee enhance the plot. --Sally Estes
Library Journal Review
Feline "sleuths" Joe Grey and Dulcie come to the rescue of Max Harper, the chief of police in Molena Point, CA, who is being framed for a gruesome double murder and the kidnap of a little girl. A special treat for those cat mystery fans. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.