Praise for the Bookmobile Cat Mysteries
Tailing a Tabby
“What’s not to love about a bookmobile, a bookmobile driver who lives on a houseboat on a lake, and a friendly cat? . . . The librarian and her cat in the traveling bookmobile . . . make me eager to read future adventures featuring these two. Humor, a good plot, easy reading, likable characters, great setting.”
—Book Dilettante
“This book was almost impossible to put down. . . . The story is filled with humor and warmth.”
—MyShelf.com
“At times laugh-out-loud funny, at other time[s] touching, while many other times are fraught with hair-raising events. . . . If, like me, you can’t get better entertainment than a novel that includes a cat, an intelligent, thoroughly modern Nancy Drew, and books that are part of a library or a bookstore, you will want to read this as soon as possible!”
—Open Book Society
“With humor and panache, Cass delivers an intriguing mystery and interesting characters.”
—Bristol Herald Courier (VA)
“A quick, fun, delightful read. You won’t want to put it down until the very last page!”
—Reader to Reader Reviews
Lending a Paw
“A charming start to the new Bookmobile Cat series. Librarian Minnie Hamilton is kindhearted, loyal, and resourceful. And her furry sidekick, Eddie, is equal parts charm and cat-titude. Fans of cozy mysteries—and cats—will want to add this series to their must-read lists.”
—New York Times bestselling author Sofie Kelly
“The first in the series charms with a likable heroine, feisty and opinionated cat, and multidimensional small-town characters.”
—Kings River Life Magazine
“A pleasurable, funny read. Minnie is a delight as a heroine, and Eddie could make even a staunch dog lover more of a cat fan.”
—Romantic Times
“This debut cozy is full of surprises and a lovely small-town setting. Chilson, Michigan, sounds like a place many readers will want to return to again and again. A great debut in a new series!”
—Debbie’s Book Bag
“This delightfully charming whodunit is a welcome addition to the cozy genre . . . a terrific read.”
—Dru’s Book Musings
“A pleasant read. . . .[Minnie is] a spunky investigator.”
—Gumshoe
Also by Laurie Cass
Lending a Paw
Tailing a Tabby
OBSIDIAN
Published by the Penguin Group
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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
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Copyright © Janet Koch, 2015
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ISBN 978-0-698-17653-9
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Praise
Also by Laurie Cass
Title page
Copyright page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Excerpt from POUNCING ON MURDER
To all who have known the love of a good cat.
“Mrr.”
Chapter 1
Some people are practically born knowing what they want to do with their lives. People like my older brother, who had his life plan scrawled out on a piece of paper by age seven, are the kind of folks who move from one goal to another, ticking things off their lists and achieving Big Things.
Other people wander through their early years without a clear path in mind, but still end up where they should have been all along. These would be people like my best friend, Kristen, who enjoyed high school chemistry so much that when the college-major decision came up, biochemistry seemed the obvious choice, and she ended up with a PhD. As it turned out, however, she did not enjoy working for a large pharmaceutical company, so she quit, came home to northern Michigan, kicked around ideas about what to do with the rest of her life, and opened up Three Seasons, which quickly became one of the finest restaurants in the region.
Then there’s me.
From age ten I knew I wanted to be a librarian, but beyond that I had no course charted out for my life. When I found a posting for assistant director at the district library in Chilson, Michigan, not long after I was handed my master’s degree in library and information science, though, I felt a ping of fate.
Chilson is a small tourist town in the northwest part of Michigan’s lower peninsula. It was where I’d spent childhood summers with my aunt Frances. It was where I’d met Kristen. It is a land of lakes and hills and has a laid-back atmosphere where “business casual” means “clean jeans and a shirt without too many wrinkles.” It was my favorite place in the entire world, and getting my dream job in a dream location was something I could not possibly have planned.
Of course, there were drawbacks, and that wasn’t even counting the facts that at thirty-three I was never going to grow past the five-foot mark, that my curly black hair was never going to straighten, and that I didn’t know how my beloved new bookmobile would handle the upcoming winter.
“He’s doing it again, Minnie,” Aunt Frances said.
We were sitting in her kitchen, because although the dining room that overlooked the tree-filled backyard was a lovely place to eat during the warm months, when the weather grew cooler, chill drafts curled around our ankles and the two of us beat a happy retreat to the warmth of the kitchen.
In summer, though, the kitchen wasn’t nearly big enough, because in June through August my aunt took in boarders. Six, to be exact: three female and three male, each of whom was single and unattached.
My aunt had an extensive interview process for her summer folks. Though she told the prospective boarders that she wanted to determine compatibility for the unusual living arrangements (the boarders cooked Saturday breakfast), she was actually starting her process of secret matchmaking. No one ever knew that they were being set up, and, in her years of taking in boarders, she’d failed only once, and even that wasn’t a complete failure.