A Whisker of a Doubt: A Cat Cafe Mystery

by Cate Conte

Overview

It's promising to be a picture-purrfect Christmas at New England's favorite cat cafe . . . but instead of jolly old St. Nick, residents are being visited by murder. The fourth in a mystery series from author Cate Conte, A Whisker of a Doubt is filled with felines and crime.

The holiday season on Daybreak Island is a mixed bag for Maddie James. On the one hand, her Christmas spirit is in the doghouse after a break-up. On the other, she’s busy enough that she doesn’t have to pretend to be merry. Business at her cat café is booming, and Maddie’s care-taking of a feral cat colony in one of the area’s wealthiest communities only helps her bottom line.

But tensions between the homeowners and animal activists are escalating to catastrophic levels. . .and before long a body is found dead in a snowbank. To prove that her accused friend is innocent of the crime, Maddie will have to prowl the island for clues to the real killer before everyone on the island goes completely hiss-terical—and more than nine lives are lost.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250761538
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	12/01/2020
Series:	Cat Cafe Mystery Series , #4
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 4.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

CATE CONTE serves on the Sisters in Crime New England board; she is also a member of Sisters in Crime, National Mystery Writers of America, and the Cat Writers' Association. Her Cat Cafe Mystery series began with Cat About Town. Conte currently lives in Connecticut with her cats and dogs.

Editorial Reviews

One of Mystery Tribune's "15 Best Crime, Mystery, and Thriller Books of December 2020"

"Filled with crazy cat lady energy." - Kirkus

"A Whisker of a Doubt is a well-written cozy mystery that brings awareness to a real issue many communities actually deal with: feral cats colonies and how to properly care for and save the cats. Conte puts forth a super entertaining story with an engaging plot, eccentric characters, and fun banter." - Mystery & Suspense

"The holiday season comes alive in this fourth Cat Café mystery that makes the most of the wintery days before Christmas. The issue of how — and why — to manage a feral cat colony is compassionately and objectively examined, realistically tackling its many complications. A rogue Christmas saboteur is thrown into the mix to add motives for murder as well as providing humor." - Kings River Life

"Fun to read [with] a good message about feral cats." - Red Carpet Crash

From the Publisher

2020-09-30
Feral-cat feeders are implicated in the murder of a wealthy man who’s resisted the feedings in a small Massachusetts island town.

Maddie James, feline lover and proprietor of the cat cafe JJ’s House of Purrs, takes on a new mission when a colony of feral cats is found in Turtle Point’s upscale Sea Spray Lane neighborhood. Though most people on Daybreak Island are locals dedicated to the community, the wealth of Sea Spray Lane’s residents insulates them from the world around them, including the welfare of the cats struggling to winter in the surrounding woods. Some residents, worried that the colony might bring down their property values, have even petitioned to poison the invaders. Bah, humbug! Now that Katrina Denning, Daybreak Harbor’s sole animal control officer and passionate animal defender, has ruffled the residents of the Sea Spray community, the cat-care responsibilities have fallen to Maddie, who’s working double-time to feed the cats with a small team of volunteers and some kind souls who are allowing access to the woods through their yards. A notable exception are the Prousts, who even call the police on a volunteer who accidentally traipses over their lawn. Soon after Maddie finds Virgil Proust murdered during a volunteer feeding trip, Katrina is suspected, then arrested. From what Maddie’s seen of newly widowed June Proust’s yelling at her poor husband in public, she thinks there’s a more likely culprit, and she’s determined to investigate even as some shady hints in Katrina’s background suggest she may not be as innocent as Maddie once thought.

Filled with crazy cat lady energy, with less emphasis on the personal than the mystery.

Kirkus Reviews