Reigning Cats & Dogs #5 September 2010 On Sale: August 31, 2010 368 pages ISBN: 0553592386 EAN: 9780553592382 Mass Market Paperback $7.99  Add to Wish List Mystery Pet Lovers Buy at Amazon.com Crossing the Lion by Cynthia Baxter CAN A SMALL-TOWN PET DETECTIVE HUNT DOWN A BEAST OF A KILLER IN ITS OWN LAIR? Veterinarian Jessica Popper is still basking in newlywedded bliss when neighbors Betty and Winston beg her to investigate the suspicious death of Linus Merrywood, king of the corporate jungle. On stormy Solitude Island, the Merrywoods have enjoyed the lion’s share of wealth for generations. But from the suspects to the surroundings, Jess feels as if she’s walked straight into an old-fashioned game of Clue—except here the stakes are life and death. There’s the butler named Jives, a sexy assistant named Scarlett, teatime in the conservatory, and a house with secret passageways, moving walls, and a wailing aunt locked in the attic. With a storm raging around the island and Jess’s least favorite police detective assigned to the case, things are looking dire until Jess’s lionhearted husband, Nick, braves his way to Solitude to rescue her. Now it’s the two of them against a family steeped in…

“You work at home? You must have so much self-discipline!” Whenever I mention that I’m a writer and that I work at home, somebody in the crowd is amazed by my ability to be productive. A lot of people seem convinced that without a boss peering over the wall of their cubicle, they’d wile away the day shopping on-line, sneaking down to the kitchen, and tuning into Oprah. While I’ve never missed a deadline, most people would probably be surprised if they ever turned into that proverbial fly on the wall and watched me work. Even though I’ve never had a problem getting any of my books written on time, I’m hardly a nose-to-the-grindstone type. Whenever I’m sitting at my computer, I’m on alert for any distraction, any possible excuse to get up and do something else. Over the years, I’ve developed a few tricks to help keep me in my chair. The main one is keeping all the things I could use as an excuse to wander around the house nearby. Hand lotion, a nail file, and lip balm are always just inches away, as are my cell phone and my landline. So are tissues, a glass of water,…

We’re all entitled to an obsession or two, aren’t we? One of mine is travel. I suppose it’s because I spent my childhood in the backseat of a car with my sister and grandmother – often a Volkswagen bug – with my parents in the front seat, acting as pilot and co-pilot. School vacation was synonymous with road trip. Since my father was an English teacher in a neighboring school district, he usually had the same days off that we kids did – and so off we’d go. Our home was on Long Island, in the suburbs of New York, which was a great starting point for traveling all over the eastern half of the United States. The five of us explored New England, Florida, and just about every state in between. (Eastern Canada, too.) We saw the big cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and Montreal; historic towns like Williamsburg, Virginia, and Salem, Massachusetts; and places that were just plain fun like Hershey, Pennsylvania, and St. Petersburg, Florida. In fact, Florida was a favorite destination for spring vacations. The drive took about three days, including stops at every Stuckey’s and Horne’s we passed along the way (a blast from the past…

What goes into writing a good mystery? While it’s critical to have a compelling plot filled with twists and turns, I’ve always believed that the book’s heroine – and the development of her “real life” – was at least as important. When I started writing the Reigning Cats & Dogs mystery series, I wanted the focus to be my protagonist, Jessica Popper. Jessie is a veterinarian with a mobile services unit, essentially a clinic on wheels. I chose to make her practice mobile instead of based in a regular office because she needed an excuse to go out into the community every day, talking to suspects and ferreting out clues. But since I love to incorporate humor in all my books, I wanted her to be sassy, independent, and strong-headed, as well as someone who was battling a few demons. The main one is her conflict over commitment, which provides the ups and downs she experiences with her boyfriend Nick. (I tried to model their relationship after the sparkling repartee in those wonderful old Katherine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy flicks – or one of my favorite movies of all times, It Happened One Night.) The Reigning Cats & Dogs series was already…