Marian Babson brings back theater actresses Trixie and Evangeline in No Cooperation from the Cat, her latest cat-suffused cozy!
Trixie’s daughter Martha has taken up residence in the kitchen she shares with her friend Evangeline. Martha is frantically testing last-minute recipes to meet the deadline for her cookbook, helped by Jocasta, her overworked editor. When a strange man bursts into their lives, it’s revealed that Martha was not the first choice for the cookbook, and that the woman originally working on it died after eating something at a cooking demonstration. Unwanted guests descend on the already crowded and tense apartment, one of whom ends up dead. Cho-Cho-San, the lovely Japanese bobtail cat, joins in the fun as Trixie and Evangeline become entangled in another puzzling murder.
Babson delivers a delightfully witty mystery with a cast sure to induce laughs, including one cat that will steal readers’ hearts.
The last thing eleven-year-old Robin wants to hear is that his mother and her new husband are extending their honeymoon indefinitely. Not that staying with his Aunt Mags is so bad, but there’s her boyfriend to contend with, and the members of the school gang are insisting that he complete a dare before they let him join the group. They want Robin to kidnap Mrs. Nordling’s prize-winning cat when no one is home.
Getting into the Nordling’s house is easy, and Robin manages to find the cat and put him in his bag. As Robin is leaving, however, he stumbles upon a terrifying scene—Mr. Nordling leaving the master bedroom with blood all over his body. Robin is momentarily paralyzed and then flees down the stairs. He can’t be sure whether or not he has been seen, but realizes that in order to stay safe, he will have to hide the unusual-looking cat.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nordling is getting desperate. He knows that if he can find the unmistakable cat he will also find the witness to his brutal crime. He begins a frantic search for the young boy, but his infuriating neighbor won’t leave him alone. She is beginning to understand what happened that night, and he decides that he will have to deal with her too.
In her thirty-sixth published mystery, Marian Babson delights readers again with her usual charm and lighthearted humor. To Catch a Cat will capture the hearts of feline lovers and mystery fans alike.
Returning home to England from New York, Margot finds her family in chaos. Her cousin Chloe is in prison awaiting trial for murdering her twin sister Claudia, their mother has withdrawn into the imaginary world of her romance novels, Claudia’s fourteen-year-old daughter has regressed to early childhood and refuses to leave her bed, and to top it all off, the family cat has decided to live with the neighbors.
As Chloe’s trial approaches, the atmosphere in the house becomes increasingly fraught, and Margot begins to wonder whether someone else is responsible for Claudia’s death. Is Chloe taking the blame for the family’s sake? It’s not until a second murder that the pieces begin to fall into place and the cat agrees to come home.
A purrfect crime!
Dame Cecile Savoy's "revolting floor mop" of a Pekinese has passed away at a ripe old age. Now, the aging British actress convinces her rivals on stage and screen, Trixie and Evangeline, to support her in her hour of grief ... by accompanying her to a taxidermist. But it's a cab ride straight to a cat-astrope!
No sooner do the three elderly thespians enter "Stuff Yours" than they discover a dead body, a live kitty in a cage, and flames bursting from the back room. Fortunately for a rare Japanese bobtail called Cho-Cho-San, Trixie grabs the cat before fleeing the scene. But who's the victim? Who set the fire? And why was a gorgeous feline going to be stuffed?
Of course, Cho-Cho-San knows more than she's letting on as the curtain goes up on foul play, murderous jealousies, and a killer who may be going to the dogs ...
A decomposing body ... a severed head in a closet ... a macabre meeting with "Mother"-mystery writer Lorinda Lucas tosses yet another paperback in the trash, appalled at the gruesome direction of today's crime fiction. She's even more disturbed at the half-starved state of Roscoe, the cat next door. Before Lorinda left for her latest book tour, Roscoe was as plump and pampered as her own two felines, Had-I and But-Known.
It only takes a modicum of sleuthing to find out that in Lorinda's absence Roscoe's owner, Macho Magee, has acquired a new girlfriend-a harridan who has put the gentle Macho and his pet on a strict diet. And that's only the first disturbing news in Brimful Coffers, the once-quiet village that now includes a writer's colony. Lorinda soon discovers that a hit-and-run has ended a child's life, professional jealousy has taken a deadly twist, and murder is just around the catty-corner ...
The prolific and delightful Marian Babson has penned another stupendous cozy for cat lovers.
Vanessa has been rushed to hospital, having been found unconscious at the foot of the stairs. Was it an accident or something else?
Now, smiling weakly, suffering from a head injury that has left her with complete amnesia about the fall, the events leading up to it, and even the people closest to her, here she is, back in their midst. Or is she?
In fact, the real Vanessa is still in a coma, and her devoted twin brother Vance, superbly disguised as a woman, has taken her place! At the home of the reclusive millionaire who maintained Vanessa, Vance joins the self-absorbed retinue, determined to discover whether one of them had attempted to kill his sister.
There is an unsavory roué who claims to be Vanessa's lover and assorted women who declare themselves her best friends. Others keep silent but seem to be waiting for Vance to put a foot wrong.
Actually, Vance can handle all those. Only one thing really worries him: Gloriana, Vanessa's beautiful Angora cat who regards her "mistress" with a dark suspicion. If the cat can't be won over, then the whole deadly charade will fall apart.
Only the Cat Knows is part of a long line of wonderful mysteries offering Babson's special mix of mayhem, murder, and cats!
A millionaire's pet tabby is the only witness to his catty murder ...
When millionaire Arthur Arbuthnot mistakes gossip maven Annabel Hinchby-Smythe for a decorator-and hires her to redecorate his apartment-the fiscally challenged Annabel can't refuse. When she sees Arbuthnot's tatty London flat, she knows anything will be an improvement. And any gossip she can dig up will be pure gold for the tabloids. But when Arthur is found dead, his frisky relatives begin to lick their chops.
Arbuthnot's beloved tabby, Sally, was the only witness to the homicide-and the sole heir to his estate. Suddenly, cat-hating family members are eager to claim her and control the family fortune. Annabel's only hope to save the cat and catch a killer is to kidnap Sally-and see who comes sniffing around. Once the cat's out of the bag, murder is sure to follow ... "The humor is playful rather than clawed in this slinky feline extravaganza from veteran author Babson."-Publishers Weekly
The cat who swallowed more than a canary ...
A lifetime of craving cuddlier companionship than her hectoring mother has led fortyish Bettina Bilby to board her neighbors' felines-an expectant tabby, a pampered blue-eyed Balinese, a depressed ginger Persian with a cod-liver-oil addiction, and Adolf, an imperious mouser with a patchwork face-for a long holiday weekend.
But a freak storm sets the pigeon among the cats: a carrier bird downed on the doorstep with a tiny load of large, flawless diamonds. And Bettina's dilemma escalates as Adolf gobbles up one of the gems and a succession of elegant but shifty strangers prowl the gardens, offending the cats and bringing in their wake backdoor bloodshed and murder.
In this hilarious tour de chat, Marian Babson goes beyond the many bubbling mysteries she has written to add an element of comic fantasy to the menace of murder.
Someone is trying to kill leading British Shakespearean actor, husband, father, ladies' man, and soon-to-be knight of the realm Winstanley Fortescue. The actor, rehearsing his starring role in the forthcoming play Serpent in the Heather, is conked on the head backstage. He falls off a ladder and lands on the resident pest-control officer, Montmorency D. Mousa (otherwise known as Monty), the company cat. When Fortescue comes to, he finds to his horror that he has become trapped in Monty's body, while the cat, now installed in the heroic frame of the distinguished thespian, has been carted off to the intensive-care unit reserved for humans. How this actor, who has played to the crowned heads of Europe, suffers such indignities as being forced to use a litter box and having to evade his unknown enemy makes this most recent work tops among all the author's delightful novels.
They had explored every avenue, and it seemed that murder was their only salvation.
Reggie and Midge, genteel husband and wife who live in what was the family’s more or less stately home, are now the reluctant managers of Chortlesby Manor Hotel, an English country inn of no particular distinction. But even this transformation will not solve their financial problems. The possibility of succor comes instead in a transatlantic phone call from Midge’s old classmate, Victoria, who is arranging “mystery tours” of the English countryside for American visitors and wants to use Chortlesby Manor as one of the locales of her staged murders.
From the beginning, the mystery tour project is heading for disaster. Dissension, complaints, and shows of temperament abound. These are upstaged, however, by a snowstorm of paralyzing amplitude, which in turn is upstaged when a real murder takes front and center.
As a killer stalks this group of amateur sleuths on holiday, solving murders is no longer fun and games. Too many guests are checking out early from this eerie old English mansion. They’re not settling their bills—or leaving enough useful clues.
“Midge and Reggie have inherited Chortlesby Manor from Reggie’s father Eric, who failed to make it profitable as a country hotel and has taken off for greener fields in Australia. Meanwhile, mystery tour weekends from the US have helped put the inn on its feet, and this one, with a staged murder for the participants to solve, has an involved scenario, hired actors, and a 1930s ambiance…[along with] some cogent observations on 1930s detective fiction and a few well-aimed barbs at contemporary work.”—Kirkus Reviews
Doug Perkins, his partner Gerry, and their cat, Pandora, have one job to do: spin gaffes into gold. But this cozy little London PR agency-a better environment for Pandora than profits-is about to be involved in a disastrous affaire dentaire. Endicott Zayle, dentist to the rich and famous-as well as to Doug and Gerry-has a problem of royal proportions. He just killed a beautiful woman with an experimental anesthetic. Or did he?
By the time Doug arrives on the scene, the corpse is up and walking around-and someone else is dead instead. With Endicott losing his grip, and a line of women all claiming personal interest in the deceased, scandal is afoot. And so is a second dose of murder. For Doug, Perry, and Pandora, making this mess look good will mean sorting through an old man's madness, a young man's foolishness, and a tooth-and-nail case of cat fighting-no holds barred.
"Those who dread the dentist's chair will crack a smile at this uproarious fourth and final volume in Babson's Perkins and Tate series...A hilarious cast of characters...This is a Mad Hatter's tea party in the dental surgery, with murder thrown in and a Siamese cat taking the role of the dormouse, pouncing at opportune moments. Sparkling comedy."-Publishers Weekly
A whisker away from death ...
A summer in England sounds like a great idea for the Harper family-and the house exchange makes it so affordable. Now they've swapped their New England home for a lovely cottage in a village near London. Why, the house even comes with a cat, a shy marmalade named Esmond. Everything seems purrfect ... until someone tries to kill Mr. Harper.
Now the genteel village feels sinister, the snooty next-door neighbor is acting suspicious, and the house is filled with its real owner's secrets. Numerous attempts on Mr. Harper's life convince his wife that they can't pussyfoot around. They need to investigate, starting with what the mousy orange cat knows.
