My Best Cat

The naughty and hilarious murder mystery, "My Best Cat" is finally getting some attention now that it's available on Kindle.  I've been asked if the characters are based on real people, and if people in the cat fancy are really that crazy.  In a word, yes!

I would say the characters are generalizations of people that I have known.  Roxanne Moore, the belligerent and promiscuous redhead who gets murdered in the restroom, is based on several people I know.  Tracy Pringle is a character that several Ohio cat fanciers might recognize.  Her pasty and tepid husband might not show up as recognizable, but that may be because those types tend to fade in real life.  I had so much fun writing this book!  What a great catharsis it was.

If I get ambitious, my hero Kim Norwich may appear in another future mystery.

I have to say my favorite character was probably Ginny.  Her vapid obsession with her Persians, and characters from, "The Sound of Music" was so sad and poignant that I found myself wishing her well.

The cats themselves were fun too:  The spunky Japanese Bobtail, the sweet Devon Rex, and of course my inimitable Somali.

Even though I fled the cat showing world a number of years ago, I have maintained some good friends who still reside on that planet.   Those are the individuals walk on the saner edge of the lunatic fringe.

I had some complaints about the formatting of the book, wherein people had trouble following the characters as the point of view switches with each chapter.  I agree it was an unusual way to present the story, and it gave me a good exercise in narrative voice. 

"My Best Cat" is an extreme departure from my Clifford stories, as it is adult fiction.  I am glad there are some cat lovers who are having fun reading it.

My Best Cat

MY BEST CAT - a Furry Murder Mystery.  While this book is a departure from my usual work (read: adult humor), it is by far the funniest, and one that I wish had garnered more attention.  Maybe it would have if I put more effort into promoting it.  I'm in the process of making it available on Kindle and so it's gotten something of a facelift, with a new cover and all.  The cover illustration is a watercolor I did called, "The Blue Curtain".  Some people will recognize the breed of cat as a blue Abyssinian, which is featured in the story.

There is something deliciously naughty in writing fiction (adult humor) about people whom you have known.  In MY BEST CAT I have combined some of the most horrendous qualities from a few real-life despicable characters in the deranged hobby known as the cat fancy.  Writing can be a cloak-and-dagger form of personal protection.  Karma is in your hands.

The characters shall remain fictitious, but here is a short teaser passage from an early chapter, just to give you a taste.  Oh, and did I mention there is some adult humor?

“Hold still!” Roxanne barked.  She stood with her butt sticking way out while she groomed my Somali.  She would bend over while she combed Kenya’s britches, then grab the tip of his tail and shake, shake, shake the hair so it fell down backwards.  It made his tail real fluffy, and made her butt shake at the same time.  Kenya’s back feet would be lifted off the carpeted grooming table, but he didn’t care.  He just kept right on purring and smiling that kitty smile.  He was that dumb.

The real goal in Roxanne’s grooming yoga was to get Jack, the guy down the row, to look at her ass.  Jack was married to a giddy, heavy-set blonde named Tracy.  But he and Roxanne had been carrying on for a few weeks, and were fresh in the throes of new lust.  Jack pretended to be oblivious to Roxanne’s grooming efforts, but it was only pretend.  He rattled the newspaper he was reading, but I saw his eyes roll briefly toward the target area as he turned the page.  It made me want to gag.  Nothing more nauseating than being witness to someone else’s foreplay.

I didn’t think Jack was all that attractive.  He had pasty skin, a fading mustache, and overall he looked sort of used and dull.  But he was one of the only straight guys in the cat crowd who was over eight and under sixty.  And he was great with the cats, handling them gently and with adulation.  As a result, he was object of perpetual crushes of various cat fanciers.  While other husbands scorned the cat shows, Jack came weekend after weekend, trundling the grooming carts, fetching litter and water, and pinning up lacy cage curtains.  I could understand why.  In the real world, Jack was a dork.  In the cat world, he was a god.