The Cats Came Back (Magical Cats)

The Cats Came Back (Magical Cats)

In this Magical Cats Mystery, now in paperback, small-town librarian Kathleen Paulson often seems to gets mixed up in murder, but luckily, her very special cats always find a way to help her close a case... The charming Minnesota town of Mayville Heights is hosting a music festival, and the whole place is bustling with musicians and tourists. Kathleen is looking forward to taking in some fabulous performances--and her two cats, Owen and Hercules, are looking forward to taking in some fabulous sardine crackers. But then the trio stumbles across a dead body by the river. The victim is a close friend of a well-known cabaret singer set to perform at the festival--and the two happen to look incredibly alike. Who could have wanted to harm the dead woman? Was it a case of mistaken identity? As accusations abound and suspicions swirl, Kathleen, Hercules and Owen will put their abilities--both mundane and magical--to the test, and lay down the paw. Praise for the New York Times Bestselling Series   "Cozy readers will enjoy spending time with Kathleen, her cats, and the appealing residents of Mayville Heights."— Publishers Weekly   "Will delight fans of cat mysteries and Jenn McKinlay's Library Lover's series."— Library Journal   "Ms. Kelly continues her highly successful series with another winning tale...Lots of great characters and two adorable cats."—Fresh Fiction   "Owen and Hercules are a delight."—Kings River Life Magazine   "With great characters and an interesting story, readers will be in for a treat with this classic whodunit."— RT Book Reviews Sofie Kelly  is a  New York Times  bestselling author and mixed-media artist who lives on the East Coast with her husband and daughter. She writes the  New York Times  bestselling Magical Cats mysteries and, as Sofie Ryan, writes the  New York Times  bestselling Second Chance Cat mysteries. ***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof*** Copyright © 2018 Sofie Kelly Chapter 1 The body was on the front seat of my truck, about halfway between the passenger door and the cloth grocery bag I’d left in the middle of the seat. “Not again,” I muttered, setting the box of glasses I was holding in the bed of the truck. I glanced at my watch. I couldn’t exactly leave the body where it was, but I didn’t want to be late, either. A flash of movement registered at the edge of my vision. I let out a breath as what I’d caught a glimpse of came into focus. A second corpse, small, furry and rodentlike, just like the one on the seat, appeared to be hovering about three inches above the hood of the truck. I narrowed my eyes in the general direction of the seemingly levitating body. “Very nice, Owen,” I said. “I’m sure Everett will be happy to learn that the offender who’s been digging up his onion sets has been dealt with.” Everett Henderson, my backyard neighbor, had been waging a war all summer long against a persistent and aggressive vole that seemed to be digging up whatever he planted just as quickly as he planted it—for sport, Everett insisted. His wife, Rebecca, had tried to convince him that if he’d just leave the vole one small area to dig in, it would leave the rest of the garden alone. But Everett wasn’t willing to concede one square inch of the yard to what he called “a thieving interloper.” He’d tried tenting the entire garden with netting, setting out a perimeter of mothballs, putting a large owl statue on an overturned galvanized bucket in the middle of the bed and even spraying a boundary around the garden of a pest control product that allegedly contained fox urine. The vole had been undeterred. It had, however, met its match in Owen, it seemed. Just then the small gray-and-white tabby appeared—literally—on the hood of the truck, holding the dead vole in his mouth. There had been a time when Owen’s ability to appear and disappear at will had been disconcerting, now it was just something he did, a quirk, like the way he had to inspect his food before he ate it or how he loved to ride shotgun in the truck. There was a gleam of satisfaction in his golden eyes as he looked at me. I felt sorry for the dead rodent. It had never stood a chance against the cat. Owen and his brother, Hercules, had spent the early part of their lives—at least as far as I knew—out at Wisteria Hill, Everett Henderson’s former family homestead. Both cats were excellent hunters, a skill that had most likely been honed during that time. I pointed toward the backyard. “We don’t want to keep Ruby waiting,” I said, making a hurry-up gesture with one finger. Normally, since it was Thursday, I would have already been on my way to tai chi class, but it had been canceled. My friend Maggie Adams, who was the instructor, was over at the Stratton Theatre, supervising the installation of artwork from the artists’ co-op that she was past president of. Owen immediately jumped down to the driveway and headed for the backyard, the dead vole still firmly in his mouth, passing Her