Cat Conundrum - A Guest Post & Giveaway

I'm pleased to welcome Lynley Cannon to Cozy Up With Kathy today. You can find Lynleyon the pages of the Crazy Cat Lady Mystery series. Cat Conundrum is the seventh book in the series and was released last month.

 

My name is Lynley Cannon. I’m a sixty-something cat shelter volunteer. That’s it! That’s all! Oh, I have other interests aside from volunteering. I also have a few (8) cats of my own, including a therapy cat and adventure cat. But I am not an amateur sleuth, I swear. These things just happen, and then before I know it, I’m involved. Maybe it’s my cat-like curiosity; maybe it’s merely coincidence, if you believe there is such a thing. I personally am beginning to wonder.Among other things, I foster sick cats, which is where the whole thing began for me. My friend Special Agent Denny Paris had convinced me to join him on a panel at the Cat Summit in Long Beach. I don’t know why I said yes—I am an introvert and don’t like crowds, especially when they’re staring at me. But the subject of shelter cats and how to help them get adopted in to forever homes is one close to my heart. I would happily sacrifice my comfort to help get the word out about their plight.

Long story short, the presentation went well, but then there was a murder. Yes, a murder in sleep little Long Beach! And it wasn’t the first—there had been a similar death some months back. Strangely enough, the rooms in which the men were killed had been locked from the inside.

This time, a cat was involved, discovered sealed with the dead man in the library of the Seaview Historical Museum. Someone had to foster poor kitty while Sheriff Boulder investigated the crime. Needless to say, I stepped up for the job. The cat, whom I dubbed Seaview for the museum in which he was found, immediately captured my heart, and even when the summit was over, I stayed on to care for him. The longer I stayed, the more embroiled I became in the community and its dreadful predicament.

I met the locals, some nice and some, not so much. I got along wonderfully with Long Beach’s crazy cat lady, a sweet young woman named Tabby like her clowder of cats, but it was dislike at first sight with her macho older husband. A Cat Summit attendee and her spouse were intrusive but well meaning, and I enjoyed their elderly friend who had recently lost her cat (though she swears kitty was stolen!), but another convention-goer seemed to be stalking me in a thoroughly creepy way. Denny’s aunt Cait was a joy, and since she knew everyone on the peninsula, she helped fill me in on the lowdown of the population.

The whole thing was a bit of a conundrum, but I stuck it out until the end. And it did end, in fire and fury. I barely escaped with my life, but I did, and no cats were harmed in the process. Things turned out well for most, but not for all.

No, I’m not a sleuth, just a cat lady with curiosity to match. If I’d gone home when I was supposed to, the saga would have progressed without me. Would things have been better or worse? There is no way of knowing. I like to think for all my effort that my presence was helpful in some way, to Seaview if no one else. And if I had it to do all over again?

I’d do exactly the same thing.

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To read the rest of Lynley’s story, find Cat Conundrum here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08KSK1531

Cat Conundrum is the 7th Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mystery featuring Lynley Cannon, a sixty-something cat shelter volunteer who finds more trouble than a cat in catnip. For cat-lovers who like clean mysteries with a little bite to them. Cat tips, tricks, and facts at the beginning of each chapter.


The Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mysteries:

Cats’ Eyes (book #1)

Copy Cat (book #2)

Cat’s Paw (book #3)

Cat Call (book #4)

Cat Café (book #5)

Cosmic Cat (book #6)

Cat Noel (a Christmas novella)

Cat Conundrum (book #7)


Books need not be read in order.
Editions Available: Kindle, Paperback

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Cat Conundrum (Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mysteries) by Mollie Hunt

About Cat Conundrum

Cat Conundrum (Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mysteries)
Cozy Mystery 7th in Series
Independently Published (October 29, 2020)
Number of Pages: 292

A locked room. A dead man. The cat is the only witness, and he isn’t talking.

Locked-room murders are being committed in sleepy little Long Beach, Washington. As to the killer, Sheriff Matt Boulder has no idea who or why.

The sheriff needs help. He calls his friend, animal cop Denny Paris, and gets a surprise bonus: Lynley Cannon, amateur sleuth. This isn’t how the sixty-something cat shelter volunteer envisioned her beach vacation, but when Denny asks her to join him in the search, how can she refuse?

While the officers investigate one line of inquiry, Lynley takes a different approach. Her only clues, a cat found at the murder scene and a rich man’s missing wife, lead her thread by thread to a scheme more insidious than fiction.

But who will she tell when she turns out to be the one in the locked room?  

About Mollie Hunt

Native Oregonian Mollie Hunt has always had an affinity for cats, so it was a short step for her to become a cat writer. Mollie is the author of The Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mystery Series, featuring Lynley Cannon, a sixty-something cat shelter volunteer who finds more trouble than a cat in catnip. The 3rd in the series, CAT’S PAW, was a finalist for the 2016 Mystery & Mayhem Book Award. The 5th, CAT CAFÉ, won the World’s Best Cat Litter-ary Award in 2019. The 6th, COSMIC CAT, is the winner of the Cat Writers Association Muse Medallion Award for Best Cat Mystery 2019.

Mollie’s sci-fantasy, CAT SUMMER (Fire Star Press) also won a Muse Medallion, this time for Best Cat Sci-fi Fantasy. CAT SUMMER is the first in her Cat Seasons Tetralogy where cats save the world from an evil older than history—twice! Mollie published a stand-alone mystery, PLACID RIVER RUNS DEEP, which delves into murder, obsession, and the challenge of chronic illness in bucolic southwest Washington. Two of her short cat stories have been published in anthologies. She has a little book of Cat Poems as well.

Mollie is a member of the Oregon Writers’ Colony, Sisters in Crime, Willamette Writers, the Cat Writers’ Association, and the Northwest Independent Writers Association (NIWA). She lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and a varying number of cats. Like Lynley, she is a grateful shelter volunteer.

Author Links:  

You can find Mollie Hunt, Cat Writer on her blogsite: www.lecatts.wordpress.com  

Amazon Page: www.amazon.com/author/molliehunt 

Facebook Author Page: www.facebook.com/MollieHuntCatWriter/  

Fire Star Author Page: http://prairierosepublications.com/authors_2/mollie-hunt\  

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7768987.Mollie_Hunt @MollieHuntCats  

Sign up for Mollie’s Extremely Informal Newsletter at: http://eepurl.com/c0fOTn.  

Purchase Link: Amazon 

 

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