Truffles Interviews: Sylvester from the Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mystery Series by Joyce Ann Brown (w/Giveaway)

Hey everybody, it's Angel Truffles! I told you I'd stick around! I've decided that until I complete my super special project of finding Mommy a new kitty, I will be continuing my interviews. Everybody up here at the Bridge thinks I have a pretty cool gig!

Today's interview is with Sylvester, the feline star of Joyce Ann Brown's Psycho Cat and the Landlady mystery series. I really think you'll enjoy meeting him...




Truffles: Welcome, Sylvester! Thank you so much for chatting with me today. Could you start by telling us a little about yourself and how you came to live with Beth?

Sylvester: I don’t speak or write human, but I’ll let my author, Joyce Ann Brown, translate for me. She seems to know what I’m thinking. Beth Stockwell, the amateur sleuth I help, also picks up on my feline intuition and understands when I point out clues.

Beth wasn’t my first human, you know. I lived with Adrianna, Beth’s step-niece, in one of the rental units Beth owned. After Adrianna disappeared and was accused of embezzlement and then murder, I went to Beth’s house while Beth and her sister, Adrianna’s mother, set about trying to prove Adrianna’s innocence and find other suspects. You’ll have to read CATastrophic Connections to find out why I continued to live with Beth and her husband, Arnie, after that. Was Adrianna guilty, and did she end up in prison? You’ll see.

How did you get the nickname Psycho Cat?

Well, Truffles, I’m a big cat, I must admit—not fat, mind you, just quite large for my species. When I was just a kitten, Adrianna named me Sylvester, but after she dealt with all my ever-so-natural feline rambunctiousness in her condo, she nicknamed me Psycho Cat. She meant it as a joke, of course, a kind of humorous alliteration, but really…

I performed some crazy cat antics back in those days, still do, actually, but I AM big, you see, which makes my natural curious and energetic actions seem overdone. Ah, the memories—the stuffed chair that I liked to jump onto and take a flying leap off the back into the bedroom hall behind it. What fun! The times I hid on the top bookshelf and jumped down onto unsuspecting guests sitting on the sofa below. Hilarious! Neither Adrianna nor I loved the time I fell into the bathtub with her when I was trying to drink from the running faucet. The memory of her facial expression gives me a chuckle, though.

Let’s admit it, most cats perform a few “psycho”-like antics. Mine were just outsized.

What is a typical day like for you?

I eat my kibbles, take catnaps in sunny windows, roam around the house finding fun places to explore and abandoned food on countertops, and sometimes sniff out a curious odor that turns out to be important to solving a mystery.

Would you like to tell us about your first two books?

Yes, thank you, Truffles. I don’t mind bragging about my starring roles. In CATastrophic Connections, I used my loudest yowls to alert Beth that Adrianna had disappeared from her rented condo and left poor me alone. Why would she do that? Then, Beth discovered that Adrianna was accused of stealing a great deal of money from the construction company where she worked. Beth’s sister was terrified that her stepdaughter may have been kidnapped, or worse. Could Adrianna really be a thief, they wondered. Beth dealt with an unexpected trip to the Virgin Islands, a murderer, and ominous threats during her investigation, but she persisted for the sake of her family.

In FURtive Investigation Beth’s and Arnie’s snow birding vacation at an Arizona RV resort ended abruptly after I sniffed out a mummified body in the attic of one of Beth’s rental duplexes where their son and daughter-in-law were pet sitting me. The cold case was dropped by the police investigators after only a few days, but Beth couldn’t let it go. The reputation of her property and the welfare of several tenants, both past and present, were at stake. It’s interesting how my author went back and forth in time to let the readers experience the horrifying truth while Beth searched for it. I, of course, used my feline senses to sniff out clues along the way.

Do you have any special abilities that help Beth with her mystery solving?

Ho. Yes! As I hinted, my powerful senses of smell, hearing, and sight give me almost a sixth sense. Besides that, loyalty for my humans combined with my, ahem, outstanding size make me valuable as a watch cat. (Author’s note: Sylvester isn’t uppity, but he is very self-confident.)

Cat to cat, do you have any favorite treats, toys, or napping spots?

Well, Truffles, I don’t know about you, but I’m a kibbles man, myself. Never have I refused a cat treat between meals, though. I bat around anything I find lying around when I’m in the mood. My favorite spot to nap is on the window seat pillow in the sun.

What can you tell us about your upcoming adventures?

I’ve heard Beth and Arnie and I are moving into a nice condo on the tenth floor, the penthouse level, of the same building in the Brookside neighborhood of Kansas City where I lived with Adrianna in our first book. Beth will rent out the smaller apartment on the sixth floor where Adrianna and I lived. I wouldn’t be surprised if there turns out to be something mysterious about those folks in the penthouse, if the renters on the sixth floor get involved, and if Beth, as usual, steps in to solve the mystery. Will it have something to do with the strange elevator, which will not go to the tenth floor when ten is pressed and always stops on a different floor? Will someone in the building be murdered? Will, I, Sylvester Psycho Cat the Sidekick Sleuth, sniff out the mystery and help solve it? Book three of Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mystery series is coming up. I wish Joyce Ann Brown had a title. Any suggestions?

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Keep your eye on Ms. Brown’s website at http://www.joyceannbrown.com to learn details as the new book takes shape. Meanwhile, read CATastrophic Connections and FURtive Investigation, the first two books in the series. Find out more about Joyce Ann Brown on her Amazon Author page and her Goodreads author page. Like her Facebook author page. Follow her on Twitter.

When Psycho Cat alerts Beth to her step-niece Adrianna's disappearance, the klutzy landlady careens into action. She and her no-nonsense sister question Adrianna's associates. They discover that the police suspect the young woman of embezzling a huge sum of money from the Kansas City construction company where she works. Believing Adrianna has been framed, Beth finds clues which lead her to the U.S. Virgin Islands. After a series of bizarre detours, she finds her niece at a spectacular island hideaway. Once home, the niece is not cleared of the theft charge. Instead, someone murders the company bookkeeper. Shadowy characters follow and intimidate Beth and her family at every turn. Someone else could end up dead. It's one thing for Beth to skirt danger on her own, but when her loved ones are threatened—Beth and Psycho Cat will fight to the end.

When Sylvester, aka Psycho Cat, discovers a human skeleton inside a trunk in the attic of one of her rental units, Beth, a Kansas City landlady, must return from wintering in Arizona. After only a few days, the investigators are told to put the case on hold. Why? Is there a connection to the stench Beth encountered in the building seven years earlier? Tracking down the tenants from that time and uncovering evidence won’t be easy, but Beth, for everyone’s sake, vows to identify both the victim and the perpetrator. The klutzy landlady and the unpredictable cat work with a CSI agent, an irascible police detective, and some passionate young people to scare up an unscrupulous villain with links to an underground world of corruption, drugs, and murder. More than they bargained for.

Giveaway: 

Leave a comment by noon eastern on Friday, July 31st for your chance to win an e-book copy of either of the Psycho Cat and the Landlady mysteries!