The Tell Tail Heart (Cat Cafe Mystery Series #3)

by Cate Conte

Overview

Welcome back to the charming New England coast, where Maddie James’s cat café is at risk of becoming a crime scene for the purrfect murder. . .

Maddie is hoping to have some downtime during Daybreak Island’s off-season to tackle her to-do list. Her grandfather’s house-turned-cat-café is under construction and she’s also scoping out places to open a juice bar on the island. On top of that, her relationship with adorable dog groomer Lucas has taken a pawsitive turn.

But easy is getting harder every day for Maddie, especially when a big-name writer who’s on the island working on a new project winds up floating in the canal. This, on the exact same day an eccentric woman shows up at the cafe claiming Maddie’s cat, JJ, is hers.

As the investigation into the dead writer picks up, Maddie realizes that even the neighbors she’s known all her life might be keeping secrets that go deep into the heart of this small seaside town. Meanwhile, a killer remains at-large...and on the prowl.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250072085
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/25/2019
Series:	Cat Cafe Mystery Series , #3
Pages:	336
Sales rank:	118,631
Product dimensions:	4.10(w) x 6.70(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Cate Conte serves on the Sisters in Crime New England board and is a member of Sisters in Crime National, Mystery Writers of America, and the Cat Writers’ Association. She currently lives in Connecticut with her cats and dog. Cate is the author of Cat About Town.

Editorial Reviews

"In a subgenre in which dialogue and character development typically take a back seat to ailurophilia, Conte's cat cafe series is eminently readable and often immersive."—Kirkus

From the Publisher

2019-05-13
A cat fancier in an island town delves into a murder that brings her own family secrets to light.

Maddie James, a cat lover through and through, has returned to her childhood home of Daybreak Island to open JJ's House of Purrs, a cat cafe catering to other fans of felines. Even in the off-season, business is going well, which is a major relief to Maddie now that she has to pay the inflated prices of Dr. Drake, the island's new veterinarian. Maddie's even been catering to bestselling thriller author Jason Holt, though she doesn't realize that for weeks she's been so close to fame until her sister, Val, points him out. To be fair, Maddie's preoccupied with other matters. One of the cafe's visitors has claimed that Maddie's longtime feline companion, JJ, is actually hers and not Maddie's. Unsure what to do, Maddie enlists the help of her grandpa Leo, the island's former chief of police, to try to set things right. She learns that the claimant's name is Thea Coleman, but when she tries to learn more about Thea online, there's nothing to be found. And that's only the beginning. As readily as grandpa Leo helps Maddie with her problem, he seems to have issues of his own, though he's reluctant to trust Maddie even when she can tell something's wrong. Leo's problems are connected to Leopard Man, one of the island's resident characters who dresses in cat prints and speaks exclusively in Shakespearean quotations. In the wake of a sudden murder, Maddie has to figure out Leo's link to Leopard Man in order to solve the crime and learn about her own family in the process.

In a subgenre in which dialogue and character development typically take a back seat to ailurophilia, Conte's cat cafe series (Purrder She Wrote, 2018, etc.) is eminently readable and often immersive.

Kirkus Reviews