Book review: ‘Shock and Paw’
Shock and Paw: A Cat Café Mystery by Cate Conte. St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 2024. Softcover, 320 pages.
Fans of Cate Conte’s engaging Cat Café mystery series might have thought amateur sleuth Maddie James and her rescued orange tabby, JJ, have had enough of being involved in Daybreak Island’s holiday happenings when they investigated a murder during Halloween festivities in Nine Lives and Alibis, Cate’s previous title. However, as all readers of Cate’s addictive cozies know, if there’s foul play on this fictional island off the New England coast, Maddie and JJ will find themselves right in the thick of things.
In Shock and Paw, the eighth book in the series, Maddie is reluctantly roped into helping organize the annual Christmas lights contest. The event is a highly competitive affair in any year — but this year, when one of the contestants is killed, the celebration goes awry. In addition to trying to solve the murder, Maddie is busy, as always, running her coffee shop and cat café where many homeless cats are up for adoption.
[Book reviews: Cozy up with these mystery stories featuring animals]
If all that were not enough, her best friend, Becky, is the police’s prime suspect, and her beloved grandfather, a retired chief of police turned private investigator, won’t let a little fall from a ladder stop him from getting involved. As the plot thickens, Maddie discovers a suspicious person who’s selling cats.
How all these threads come together makes for another satisfying installment in a mystery series that has a heart for helping cats and highlights the need for adoption. My own rescued cat, Tamsin, gives Shock and Paw two paws up.
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