Murder of the Cat's Meow

 





Murder of the Cat's Meow by Denise Swanson was read during WWRAT5.  It is a wonderful Cozy Mystery.

Skye Denison makes her living as a school psychologist and is engaged to the Scumble River police chief, Wally Boyd.  Her friend Bunny Reid is having a cat show and is starting a dating servicce at her bowling alley.  Skye is called to come to the bowling alley to help find a missing cat.  The cat is found and she is convinced to stay and help with the cat show. There were dealers selling things for cats and a photographer.  So, Skye buys some things for her cat and arranges to meet the photographer in the morning. She winds up serving dinner and washing dishes and stays to see who gets matched but leaves before the disco dancing afterwards.

The next morning, Skye arrives at eight and finds that the show's hours were 9 to 2.  She tries the door and finds it open.  Bingo, her cat was in a carrier and Skye sees brown ooze coming from the mesh of the carrier.  Bunny comes in and smells the mess.  Skye wants to clean Bingo and the carrier so she is directed to the basement.  While looking for the utility closet. she finds Alexis Hightowner strangled by a cat toy and quite dead.  Alexis was one of the judges during the event and was disliked by a lot of people.

Since Skye did not know if the murder is still in the bowling alley, she hurries up stairs, finds Bunny and tells her what happened and gets them to Bunny's office.  She locks the door and calls 911.  When the police arrive, they do not let Skye clean the cat up after she promisses to make a list of people who may have convinced Alexis to go to the basement who may have had a reason to kill her.  She answers their questions and they let her leave to clean up.

Skye also happens to be a consultant for the police department and consults with Wally about who may have motives.  The police come up with a major suspect who is nowhere to be found.  Skye eventually comes up with a clue as to where he might be.  He is caught and confesses but Skye still does not believe he committed the crime.

While all this is going on, Skye is still needed at the schools where she works.  She spends time at the different schools and if needed at one, has to reschedule at the other.  Skye and Wally set a date for their wedding and her friend Spike comes to town to investigate small town corruption.  The next day, Skye finds a clue in something Spike dropped which leads to the conclusion of the book.

The book ends with Skye shopping for a wedding dress.

I love cozy mysteries and this is a very good one.  There is the added bonus of a ghost who refuses to let Skye and Wally have sex at Skye's house and the attempt to get rid of the ghost.  Since I own three cats, like the fact that Bingo is not forgotten - even if Skye is away from home.  This book will be discussed later this month at the cat mystery lovers yahoo group and I do not want to say any more about the mystery.  This book is a must read for cat and cozy mystery lovers.