Sydney McCall has moved back to Deer Park, North Carolina. Her job at the ad agency in New York was rewarding, but so is being home and helping her sister Katherine at the Friendly Paws Animal Shelter. And when she got to put her marketing skills together with her passion for finding furever homes for cats, life for Syd is good.
New York Times bestselling author Dudley Simmons, whose latest book is a memoir about his relationship with his rescue cat, is coming to town for a book signing, where a percentage of his sales go to help out the shelter. But when a car accident waylays him a week before the event, it's bookstore manager Tara who comes through with a replacement, Ulla Townsend, beloved shopping channel hostess and bestselling author.
When news of Ulla's event gets out, the line for the book signing stretches out for blocks. She decides to tape it to show on her shopping show, Shopping Your Way, for her upcoming fifteenth anniversary. Ulla and her entourage take over the bookstore, but Syd and Kat are able to find a place for themselves and the cats they are trying to find homes for and set up the kitties for maximum cuteness.
But when the guest of honor appears to stop breathing late in the book signing, Syd wonders if it could be foul play. Ulla certainly seemed to have made some enemies along the way, like the younger show host whose name is throughout Ulla's memoir, and not in a favorable way. There's the manager who is too involved with his clients' affairs. And his wife, who is all too aware of his affairs. And even though Ulla no longer lived in Deer Park, there were still those in town who remembered her from high school, for all the wrong reasons.
While the event was successful for the felines, will Syd's curiosity do to her what it can do to a cat?
T.C. LoTempio's Death By a Whisker, the second in her Cat Rescue Mystery series, is a charming cozy with cats, books, and pastries galore. Set in a warm community with lots of colorful characters, this mystery is also filled with juicy show business gossip and people behaving badly. It's a great ride, perfect for reading to your own rescue cats on a sleepy afternoon.
Galleys for Death By a Whisker were provided by Crooked Lane Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.