The Corpse Who Walked in the Door by Jackie King: Guest Author & Giveaway

In My Own Defense

by Trouble Cassidy

First of all, let me say that I was misnamed by my Person, Grace Cassidy. I’m anything but trouble. It’s Grace who is always in trouble. If I could rename myself, I would be Chalmers, which means, “lord of the household,” which I am. Sometimes Grace forgets how hard I work.

Don’t let my inert position fool you. I’m ready to spring to help Grace at any minute. Cats have huge responsibilities looking after their special Person. There’s this odious fellow who tries to lord it over my Grace, named Wilber Wimberly. He owns the place where we live and Grace has to do everything he orders her to do. He calls her, his inn-keeper. His? Who does this fellow think he is? Grace, as everyone knows, belongs to me. She has since that first day when we met. I was just a kitten then, and have a sort of blurred memory of this, but I’ll tell you what I can.

Grace was stumbling around in a rainstorm and almost stepped on me. I looked up at her and meowed as loud as I could. She muttered something I can’t remember, but she finally had the presence of mind to pick me up and tuck me inside her somewhat cluttered handbag. Immediately I knew we were supposed to be together and I settled down to take a catnap.

This part of my life is recorded in Jackie King’s book, THE INCONVENIENT CORPSE.

Jackie’s next book, THE CORPSE WHO WALKED IN THE DOOR, starts with an amusing little story about me. The evil Wilbur Wimberly chased me around the drawing room with a poker. All I had done was catch a mouse and showed it to him. Aren’t cats supposed to catch mice?

“It’s still alive!” he shouted, dancing about the room and screaming like a little girl.

Well, of course it was alive. I didn’t want to murder him, I just wanted to play for a spell. And I did have a good time, until Grace came in and took the poker away from him and picked me up. The mouse, alas, got away. But I’ll catch him again.

What I really wanted to do was give that Wilbur a good talking to. The man has no manners at all. And he’s even put me to work! Me! The reigning feline.

It seems that folks who come to this quaint old B&B miss their own tabbies left back home in Cincinnati or Wichita or Oklahoma City. The deal is, if I stay the night in their room, Wimberly bills them. Five dollars, it is. Does that sound as if I’m some kind of freeloader? Absolutely not! I’m a working cat. It wears a fellow out just going around looking adorable all day. But at least Grace gets part of the payoff. My Person is learning to stand up for herself. She wasn’t any good at this at all when we first met, but I’ve taught her a thing or two.

I’m also the cat who found the body in the bathtub! If you’re interested in knowing the scuttlebutt about this, you need to read Jackie King’s latest book, THE CORPSE WHO WALKED IN THE DOOR. Starring me, Trouble, AKA Chalmers, Lord of the Household.

Book Details:

Genre: Cozy Mystery

Published by: Deadly Niche Press

Publication Date: June 2014

Number of Pages: 206

ISBN: 978-162016-112-8

Purchase Links:

Synopsis:

Former society wife Grace Cassidy is learning to live on the minimum wage she earns as a bed & breakfast inn-sitter. Grace finds her cat’s bloody paw prints leading away from a bathtub and wants to run for her life. But she can’t. Her 19-year-old son is accused of pushing his pregnant girlfriend down a flight of concrete steps and she won’t abandon him.

Read an excerpt:

Blood colored paw prints trailed from the white tile bathroom onto the faux Oriental rug in the bedroom where Grace stood. The cat-feet marks immobilized Grace. She closed her eyes and prayed that she had been claimed by stress-induced insanity, that there were no dark-red blots before her eyes, but a hallucination. A nice long rest in a mental hospital didn’t sound too bad. Anything except another dead body in this inn where she worked.


Jackie King loves books, writing tall tales, and murdering the people she dislikes on paper. Her latest mystery The Corpse Who Walked in the Door is available in ebook format. She is a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, Romance Writers of America, Oklahoma Writers Federation, and Tulsa NightWriters.

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