Melissa's Mochas, Mysteries and Meows: Cat Conundrum by Mollie Hunt

Friday, November 20, 2020

Cat Conundrum by Mollie Hunt - Blog Tour with Guest Post and Giveaway

Seaview: the feline hero of Cat Conundrum, a Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mystery #7

Breed: Maine Coon

Favorite Toy: Mouse on a string; rattle balls.

Favorite Pastime: Channel surfing (i.e. watching wildlife through the window)

Likes: Food, sleep, kind people.

Dislikes: Being locked in a room with a dead man.

Advice to the reader: Be vigilant. You never know when everything’s about to change.

Thank you for giving me this opportunity to tell my story. My life has been chaos lately, and I still don’t know what to make of it. There was a killing, a human snuffing the life of another human. The violence! The scent of death! And then I was left alone with the dead person, locked in a room with no escape. When they found me, I was nearly cat-atonic.

Great Cat, was I glad when they came and rescued me! The nice lady took me to her house. Granted it was a strange place with unfamiliar smells and sounds, but I am no longer the cat I once was. The minute I was locked in that death room, there was no going back.

The new human calls me Seaview, so I guess that’s my name now. I’m what they consider a Maine Coon breed of cat, though so far as I know, I’ve never been to a place called Maine—not even a street by that name—and I have no familial relationship to any raccoons. Humans are funny. They think up all sorts of things that make sense to them but to no one else. but they can say what they like—they will anyway.

I am very big, my ears are tufted, and my long silver tabby coat is resplendent. I am strong and in my prime, and I dare say, with my formidable claws and teeth, I could defend myself against a human and win. It had never crossed my mind before that awful ordeal, but now that I’ve seen the unthinkable, I could almost imagine it.

Still, for the most part, I am a mellow fellow. I like to play with toys and sit at the window watching birds and bees. I love a good sideburn scritch and enjoy being brushed. I purr loudly when I’m happy and go elsewhere when I’m not. This system had served me well until that day I was closed in where I didn’t want to be. Since all exits were closed and locked, there was no going away, no matter how loudly I cried.

Yes, it was a terrifying experience, and it didn’t end there. But if you want to know more, you must read the book, Cat Conundrum. The author chronicles my saga well, though I think she spent entirely too much time relating the human side of the story. Who could care that there were not one, not two, not three, but four grisly murders in the small, coastal town of Long Beach? Why would they want to know that the suspects were many and varied? What possible interest could it be that a rich man’s wife had gone missing, aside from the coincidence that her name was Tabby like the markings on my silver coat? But humans are hot for details, so details they shall have. And thankfully it all ended happily, at least for most of us.

Again, thank you for giving me the chance to vent a bit. Happy to do it. And now it’s time for my nap. What about you?

CAT CONUNDRUM, the 7th Crazy Cat Lady Cozy Mystery

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?

To read the rest of Seaview’s story, find Cat Conundrum here.

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.

About the author:

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.

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