Scratch the Surface

May 9, 2005
Fans of Conant's Dog Lover's mysteries (Bride and Groom
, etc.) will lap up the first installment of a new series, which introduces Felicity Pride, the author of a mystery series about cats. When Felicity returns to her Boston-area home from a book signing, she's a little freaked out to stumble on a very dead corpse, and a very live cat, in her vestibule. Her shock, however, doesn't prevent her from trying to get as much publicity as possible from her discovery. Envisioning her book sales skyrocketing after she catches the killer, Felicity learns that solving a murder in real life is a lot harder than writing a mystery novel. Yes, the setup—a cat mystery about a cat mystery writer who finds a real body—is a trifle meta. But Conant, never precious, takes the opportunity to poke gentle fun at some of the conventions of the cozy genre. Sidesplittingly funny and very clever, this book is just about purr-fect. Agent, Deborah Schneider.