Cat Shout for Joy: A Joe Grey Mystery by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

Joe Grey is a special cat:  He can speak.  He hides that ability but he's proud of the work he can do by sneaking about listening or sniffing out evidence to help the police.  He calls them on a cell phone so it can't be traced back to his owner.  He'll need all his wits about him for this case.  He's also going to be facing some life changes in his personal relationships.

William Morrow and Edelweiss gave me the opportunity to read this book for review (thank you).  It will be published February 23rd.

One of the cat friends in this story is succumbing to cancer, Dulcie is about to have kittens and Kit and Pan have gone off on an adventure.  When someone starts knocking old people down all over town, the police begin looking into it.  There aren't any witnesses.  Nobody is stealing anything.  Why would they bother?

As time goes on, more than one victim dies.  Suddenly it looks like it could be murder and the others are just decoys.  The tie to the murderer is hidden and takes a while to ferret out.  

I found this story sad.  The cats generally amuse me and make me laugh but that's hard to do when one of them is dying.  Then a close friend of the humans is killed.  And the ending was just a bit too convenient for me.  They should have been brought to justice.  Justice did prevail but it wasn't through the arm of the law.  It wasn't a bad read but it wasn't Ms. Murphy's best either.  Read it and see what you think.