The Big Cat Nap

To celebrate the twentieth anniversaryof the beloved Mrs. Murphy mystery series, Rita Mae Brown and her intrepidfeline co-author Sneaky Pie Brown return with a charming claw-biting talestarring Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen. Of course prowling faithfully at Harry'sside are the sleuthing cats Mrs. Murphy, ever wise, and Pewter, reliably crankyand always primed with a razor-sharp quip. Fiercely loyal and on the alert,corgi Tee Tucker is also never far behind. This time, Harry and her menageriethrow a wrench into the gears of a killer of grease monkeys.

It's mid-May, and Crozet, Virginia, is heating up fast, or so it seems toHarry. The town's beloved ex-post mistress is never idle, dividing her timebetween raising this year's bounty of crops; taking care of her veterinarianhusband, Fair; indulging her passion for classic cars; and adding further toher reputation as a nosy neighbor. It starts when Harry's dear friend MirandaHogendobber takes her on a leisurely drive that ends in a narrow drainageditch. The chaos continues when the Very Reverend Herbert Jones's Chevy pick-upalso abruptly goes kaput. But these vehicular mishaps are nothing compared tothe much more distressing state of a mechanic discovered by Harry in a localrepair shop: His head's been bashed in.

Despite numerous warnings from her much-loved coterie of friends, human andotherwise, Harry rather quickly surmises that the time has come to pop the hoodand conduct her own investigation. Her animal companions see disaster fastapproaching but can do little except try their best to protect their foolishlyintrepid human. Harry's race to the truth leads straight to powerful forcesdetermined to avoid scrutiny at any cost-even if it means running HarryHaristeen off the road for good.

Rita Mae Brown is the New York Timesbestselling author of the Mrs. Murphy mystery series (which she writes withher tiger cat, Sneaky Pie) and the Sister Jane novels, as well as RubyfruitJungle, In Her Day, Six of One, The Sand Castle, and the memoirs AnimalMagnetism and Rita Will. An Emmy-nominated screenwriter and a poet, Brownlives in Afton, Virginia, with cats, hounds, horses, and big red foxes.