Life had been going swimmingly, as life usually does in Hampton Cove, when suddenly disaster struck. Odelia had scheduled a surprise visit to Vena Aleman. Vena is our local vet, and a master at inflicting pain and suffering. And as it happens she was about to have a field day, for I’d been troubled by a toothache, and this fact had not escaped Vena.So when those awful abductions happened I should have seen them coming, but I was still under the influence of my pain meds. Is it any wonder, then, that Dooley and I were captured by those awful catnappers? I blame Vena, to be honest, though of course that fiendish woman would deny all responsibility, and blame everything on the bad guys.Add to that Grandma Muffin stomping at the bit to pick a fight with Tex, Odelia chasing the story of a lifetime when the local sausage store ran out of sausages, and you can see why I felt compelled to share these harrowing events with you, dear reader. Will there be a happy ending, you ask? Well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it, and I may be a lot of things but I’m not a tattletale. **

Cue for Murder Odelia Poole, Hampton Cove’s premier reporter and amateur sleuth, has been tapped to play the lead in this summer’s production of Bard in the Park. But when her understudy is found murdered, she is forced to take off her acting cap and put her detective’s cap back on. Meanwhile, Odelia’s cats face some trouble of their own when Brutus is caught in flagrante delicto with one of cat choir’s more frivolous redheads. Harriet is not happy, and suddenly the ‘Fab Four’ are no more. And when Gran uncovers a plot to target her family, life in the small town suddenly turns very dicey indeed. **