Cat to the Dogs

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

(Joe Grey Cat Mystery Series, Book 5)

HarperCollins, 2000
Hardcover: ISBN 0061050970
Paperback: Avon, ISBN 0061059889
E-book: HarperCollins
Large Print: Beeler, ISBN 1574902644
Audiobook: Download, CD, and digital rental

Ever since the earthquake, things have been going from bad to worse in Molena Point. There was the car "accident" on Hellhag Hill, which looked--well--fishy, to Joe's night-wise eyes. And now even Dulcie is getting weird. She's going to the dogs, literally. She's taken to mothering the two orphaned pups discovered at the scene of the crash. Worst of all, there's Clyde, Joe's erratic but lovable human. He thinks cats should stay out of police work and he's locking Joe and Dulcie out of the house when Officer Harper comes over to play poker. But Joe is not about to give up the chase. Mice are nice, but what cat can resist the chance to stalk a real killer?

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Quotes from the reviews

"Clever plotting and lyrical prose offer top entertainment." --Kirkus Reviews

"Murphy's a master of fantasy, and her remarkable writing skills carry us willingly into suspension of reality.... I've become addicted to reading Murphy's Joe Grey mysteries.... She writes with a great facility for description, using English with a refinement of phrasing and cadence much appreciated by the careful reader." --Margot Petit Nichols, Carmel Pine Cone, December 17, 1999

"...Murphy's two irresistible feline sleuths are at it again in their latest caper.... Cat to the Dogs blends feline 'attitude' with a captivating story line to create a readable and highly enjoyable mystery.... If a cat is part of your life, but you haven't discovered Joe Grey and Dulcie yet, it's time you did." --Bob Walch, Monterey County Herald, February 13, 2000

"...Fast-paced, intricate and well-researched, Cat to the Dogs glows with Murphy's obvious love for all animals, her sense of outrage at crime and criminals, and her quick, analytical approach to forensic details. Funny, tender and loving at times, Cat to the Dogs is still a murder mystery--so Murphy doesn't shy away from graphic crime scene descriptions. Sure to delight cat lovers and detective mystery fans alike, with a dash of fantasy thrown in for good measure!" --Ann Sharkey, Library Cat Newsletter, Spring 2000

"The plotting is tight, the characters delightful and the cats are utterly believable.... Cat to the Dogs ... held my interest page after page until its exciting conclusion. Highly recommended." --Michele A. Reed, I Love a Mystery

"...In a beautifully believable scenario, Murphy has given us a reason to accept Joe Grey and Dulcie as cats who can talk, read, dial telephones... [The other books are] all as enchanting.... I spent days totally captured and oblivious to whatever went on around me ... this woman is simply an excellent writer... I am coming to believe that ... these books are really written by a cat... It seems impossible that a human being could write so knowingly and charmingly about the feline persuasion. --Lois Mark Stalvey, Red Rock News, Sedona, Arizona, October 20, 2000

Excerpt from the story

Fog lay so thick in Hellhag Canyon that Joe Grey couldn't see his paws, could barely see the dead wood rat he carried dangling from his sharp teeth. Moving steeply down the wall of the ravine, the tomcat was aware of a boulder or willow scrub only when his whiskers touched something foreign, sending an electrifying jolt through his sleek gray body. The predawn fog was so dense that a human would have barged straight into those obstacles--one more example, Joe Grey thought smugly, of feline senses far keener than human, of the superiority of cat over man.

The fog-shrouded canyon was silent, too, save for the muted hushing of the sea farther down and the occasional whisper from high above of wet tires along the twisting two-lane, where some early-morning driver crept blindly. Joe had no idea why humans drove in this stuff; swift cars and fog were bad news. As he searched for a soft bit of ground on which to enjoy his breakfast, another car approached, moving way too fast toward the wicked double curve, sending a jolt of alarm stabbing through Joe.

The scream of tires filled the canyon.

The skidding car hit the cliff so hard, Joe felt the earth shake. He dropped the wood rat and leaped clear as the car rolled thundering over the edge, its lights exploding against the fog, its bulk falling straight at him, as big as a hunk of the cliff, a mass of hurtling metal that sent him streaking up the canyon wall. It hurtled past, dropping into the ravine exactly where he'd been crouching.

The car lay upside down beneath a dozen young oak trees broken off and fallen across its spinning wheels. The roof and those tons of metal had likely flattened his wood rat into a bloody pancake--so much for his nice warm breakfast.

Where the careening car had disturbed the fog, and the rising wind swirled the mist, he could make out the gigantic form easing deeper into the detritus of the canyon, the car's metal parts groaning like a dying beast, its death-stink not of escaping body fluids, but the reek of leaking gasoline.

This baby's going to explode, he thought as he prepared to run. Going to blow sky-high, roast me among these boulders like a rabbit in a stone oven.

But when, after a long wait, no explosion occurred, when the vehicle continued only to creak and moan, he crept warily down the cliff again to have a look.

Hunched beneath the wreck's vast, dark body--its ticking, grease- stinking, hot-breathed body--he looked up at the huge black wheels spinning above him and listened to the bits of glass raining down from the broken windows that were half-hidden among the dry ferns, listened to the big metal carcass settle into its last sleep. He could hear, from within, no human utterance. No groan, no scream of pain or of terror, only the voice of the sea pounding against the cliffs.

Was no one alive in there? He studied the overturned car, listening for a desperate and anguished cry--and wondering what he was going to do about it. Wondering how a poor simple tomcat was going to render any kind of useful assistance.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The broken, fallen saplings that lay tangled across the wreck's greasy, exposed underside half covered the drive shaft and one bent wheel. He found the source of the dripping sound. It came from the left front wheel, where a viscous liquid, a substance as thick as maple syrup, dropped steadily into a pool among the crushed ferns. When he sniffed the little puddle, the stuff smelled a bit like syrup: the stink of pancake syrup laced with ether.

Backing away, he approached the upside-down windshield that rose from the bracken, the glass patterned like a spiderweb encased in crystal. And now, over the smell of gas, came the sharp scent of human blood.

Behind the glass he could see the driver, white and still, his contorted body wrapped around the steering wheel and impaled by a twisted strip of metal, his head jammed down into the concavity of the roof. There was no way this guy could be alive, not with his chest pierced through and the amount of blood pooling out. The passenger seat had come loose and lay across him. He hugged it firmly in a rictus of pain and death.

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