A Joe Grey Mystery #17  December 2011 On Sale: November 22, 2011 Featuring: Debbie Kraft; Joe Grey 352 pages ISBN: 0061806927 EAN: 9780061806926 Kindle: B0053JOL5I Hardcover $19.99 Add to Wish List Mystery Pet Lovers, Mystery Cozy, Holiday Buy at Amazon.com A holiday mystery Cat Telling Tales by Shirley Rousseau Murphy Even the bright seaside village of Molena Point has been hit hard by the economic downturn, bringing a rash of foreclosures in which many residents are abandoning their family pets. While feline P. I. Joe Grey’s human friends join together to care for the starving cats, a fire leaves a twelve-year-old boy homeless. The body of his alcoholic guardian is discovered in the smoldering ruins, causing Joe to wonder if escape was really impossible for the elderly woman or if something more sinister occurred. Meanwhile, Debbie Kraft descends uninvited on the Damens’ home with her two children, claiming that her ex-husband has left her with no money and nowhere else to go. But when Joe learns that the victim of the fire was Debbie’s estranged mother and that Debbie is not broke at all but carrying plenty of cash, his fur is on end with suspicion. As Debbie’s abandoned tomcat…

I hate having my picture taken, something I blame equally on my mother and her closest friend, mother of my childhood buddies Bill and Stephen. Both moms had old Brownie box cameras, and they were forever posing us in front of something—a bush, a fence, someone’s car—reminding us, “Say cheese,” and then spending the next several minutes squeezing us closer together and wiping dirt from our faces with mommy spit, while our smiles hardened into something resembling the rictus of a death mask. Then when the photos were developed, someone—usually me—was missing the top of his or her head. See what I mean? (You’ll notice the boys are nowhere to be seen, but I do have all my head in this one.) Over the years I’ve had some good photos taken and some not so good ones, like the time I tried to duplicate the crisp, white-shirted look of one of my favorite writers, Tess Gerritsen. With my fair skin I ended up looking more like Robert Pattinson in the Twilight movies. Even if you squinted, I didn’t look like Tess. Recently, I heard from the very nice publicist who works for one of my equally nice publishers. Did I…