Short Cat Mysteries

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects more than 50 of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories - many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

Spencer Quinn’s first original audio short story reveals how everyone’s favorite detective duo - Chet the Dog and P.I. Bernie Little - came to meet before their first big case in Dog On It. As fans know, Chet first met Bernie on that fateful day when he flunked out of K-9 police school. The details of that day, though, have always remained a little vague (like so much in Chet’s doggy brain). All we know is that Chet had been the best leaper in his K-9 class, but for some reason he failed his final leaping test...and that a cat was involved...and that there was some blood. But whose?

Sticking their noses where they are most definitely not wanted. Despairing of their humans, these pets take it upon themselves to solve the cases they see as only cats and dogs can. Whether they sniff out the clues or fool the criminals into thinking they are harmless pets to be ignored, Rex, Amber, Buster, and more enjoy escapades a plenty in this fun collection of short stories. Grab your copy and be ready for the fur to fly! Includes: Police Dog - Day One Amber's Bust The Little Lost Dachshund Hell Cat Hell Hounds The Clown, the Witch, and the Cat The Case of the Missing Pasty

Vivian, a former reporter and a newlywed, doesn’t know what to do with herself after an incident with her husband forces her to question their partnership and her future. Yearning for the ocean air and a sense of home, she retreats to Tybee Island to clear her head and visit her Nana, a retired PI who now struggles with dementia. The phone rings: Catherine Grant, a housewife living in a private development nearby, woke up to find her husband and their baby girl missing, and she is desperate for help.

When pets investigate, you can be sure the fur will fly. When two kids go missing on Hallowe’en, the task of finding them provokes a Buster versus Amber challenge. The dog can follow the scent, but the cat will use her brains. Who will find the children first? And where are they anyway? But Felicity’s pets aren’t the only ones trying to solve this case. Her niece, Mindy, is out in the dark too. There’s a mob forming outside a suspiciously derelict and overgrown house, but is the lady inside really a witch? In the ultimate test of feline against canine and pets against humans, who ...

A missing pet. A gang of criminal pit bulls. Two cat detectives are ready to solve a mystery… Yoshi and Gatsby are two felines known as the Petectives. When they agree to help a pretty young cat find her missing brother, a routine pet investigation goes sour faster than a bowl of milk. To solve the mystery, the cat detectives must face down a gang of vicious criminal pit bulls and the neighborhood dog police. While Gatsby's up to his whiskers in danger and romance, Yoshi puts together the pieces of a puzzle that could rock their community. With enemies at every turn, can Yoshi and Gatsby ...

Set in the biggest small town in the country, Susan and Mike travel to St. Louis for their son’s Match Day ceremony. At the reception, the dean of the medical school drops dead under mysterious circumstances. Susan smells foul play. Teaming up with the detective’s mother, it's double trouble as she and her new bestie uncover secrets worthy of murder in Murder is Medical. In Murder is Universal, Susan and Valerie are on a flight when they discover the passenger in the middle seat dead on arrival. The dynamic duo is convinced it was murder. The dead passenger, owner of a successful ...

This is a Box Set of Cozy Mystery Books 1-3 in the Tabitha Clive Amateur Sleuth Short Read Series Cats, Crooks, and Cobblers - Book 1 Question: What does a rusty old tin box, peach cobbler and a dead ex-boyfriend all have in common? Answer: Tabitha Clive! When the citizens of her hometown of Kornville, Nebraska, are shocked by a murder, amateur sleuth and part-time reporter Tabitha Clive takes it upon herself to investigate. Tabitha’s case proves more complicated than she anticipated. She must deal with a strange cast of characters, from a suspicious new farmhand to a rude baker with a ...

January in Maine brings cold and snow. Lots and lots of snow. But just when I thought things were settling down around here, I stumbled over a frozen body. What else could go wrong? My boyfriend, Alec, retired from the police department at the end of the year because his boss was giving him trouble. But when he decided to become a private investigator, the bodies just keep coming. And as if things weren’t bad enough, the victim on ice was a schoolteacher and everyone like her. (Except for the killer, of course.) It was for that reason that I made up my mind to find her killer. Annoying ...

People are beginning to go missing in a small rural town. A veteran officer and a new hire are on the case, while dealing with a cat invasion. Can they find what is causing people to disappear before it is too late?

Mira’s snarky cat, Arnold, finally gets his own story. Told from the point of view of Mira’s trusty cat, Arnold, this short story is about the trials and tribulations of being a cat-dad to three rambunctious kittens during the Christmas holiday. Even more challenging, Arnold’s rivals arrive with Mira’s sister Darla, on Christmas eve. The twin cats are psychic and annoying, forcing Arnold to use every ounce of patience to be a good cat for Christmas. To make matters worse his kittens go missing and he must partner with Darla’s twin menaces to save them. Quickly things go sideways, ...

Bo can do things no cat should be able to do. That’s because Bo isn’t really a cat -- or rather, he is a cat, but he’s more than a cat. When Bo’s “owner” catches him typing away on his computer late one night, that’s when the ultimate game of cat and mouse begins. And guess who’s the mouse in this little scenario? This darkly humorous tale is approximately 30 pages in length.

The perfect introduction to the crazy world of Lavender and Brown. The chaotic mystery comedy series set in York in 1888. The Midnight Potato Thief Follow James Lavender and Sydney Brown on their very first case – in The Midnight Potato Thief! Someone is stealing potatoes (and other food products) in the middle of the night and leaving little notes. No, it’s not exactly what James expected when setting up a detective business at all, but can they solve the mystery? The York Treasure Hunt Join James Lavender and Sydney Brown as they race against time to track down the loot against the ...

Kathleen Paulson has her hands full in Mayville Heights, Minnesota, running the public library and taking care of her two uncanny cats, Hercules and Owen. Kathleen's good friend Maggie says items are being stolen from the local artists' co-op. She doesn't want to call the police, because the main suspects are all close friends. Luckily, Kathleen and her faithful felines are there to put their paws on the truth!

Who knew a collector of miniatures could end up at the center of a murder? When eccentric collector Dolores Finch is found dead in her dollhouse exhibit, amateur sleuth Lila Whitcomb, her witty cat Pip, and her sharp-tongued sidekick Donna can’t resist poking around. Between Dolores’s quirky collection, a trail of jealous rivals, and more than one suspicious alibi, the case proves anything but small. With their wits, humor, and a knack for stumbling into trouble, Lila, Pip, and Donna must piece together the truth before the killer adds another name to their collection.

When Liz inherited her grandmama’s bookstore in small town, Bliss, Georgia, she knew it came with a certain set of problems. Poor organization, a lack of shelf space, and a rumored ghost to name a few. Fortunately, Liz didn’t believe in the latter, and she was well prepared to handle the former. Until a sudden storm traps several shoppers inside the store, and one of them turns up dead! Now Liz is putting her keen eye and community knowledge to use identifying the killer, but it just might take a little help from her resident ghost kitty to finally solve the case!

This is a story from the Fall of the House of Usher collection. The horrors of the Spanish Inquisition, with its dungeon of death, and the overhanging gloom on the House of Usher demonstrate unforgettably the unique imagination of Edgar Allan Poe. Unerringly, he touches upon some of our greatest nightmares: Premature burial, ghostly transformation, words from beyond the grave. Written in the 1840s, they have retained their power to shock and frighten even now.

It had been a while since Hannah and Harley completed their last case and both were itching to put their detective skills back to work. The cooler months had been sneaky and without warning pushed the warm weather away as corn mazes and haunted houses began appearing on street corners and other spooky locations! Hannah and Harley were home watching the nightly news when the phone rang and Officer Grant called to inform Hannah that a gang of thieves were dressing up in Halloween costumes pretending to go through haunted houses and corn mazes; but instead, were robbing unsuspecting businesses...

A Little Paris Christmas Murder —🎄🗼🐱 a festive cozy mystery set in Paris where food, wine, and books warm even the coldest nights… along with Mercury, the cat. Christmas in Paris… what could possibly go wrong? Ava Sext, an amateur sleuth and transplanted Londoner who sells books from a stand overlooking the Seine, is determined to make this her best holiday season ever. But when a fellow bookseller is pushed into the Seine at the bustling Christmas Fair, leaving him fighting for his life, Ava and her friend Henri DeAth must unravel the mystery before the holiday cheer turns ...

Animals behaving badly. A ghostly hand on the staircase of an old theater. Skunks where no skunks should be. Insider information from the author herself about the strange, absurd, and occasionally even glamorous world of belly dance! In this collection of short stories, there are also more than a few appearances by Ginger and Susan, the main characters in the series The Belly Dance Mysteries. While they’re not stumbling over bodies this time, they do manage to get into quite a few ridiculous situations! This hodgepodge collection has a little something for everyone, so if you need a laugh...