Not a Creature Was Purring: A Paws & Claws Mystery - Softcover

Davis, Krista

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1101988584 ISBN 13: 9781101988589

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

Santa Claws is coming to town and checking his list for a murderer—as the New York Times bestselling Paws & Claws Mysteries continue…

Inn owner Holly Miller finds it ruff staying cheerful over the holidays when the dead body of a beloved businessman turns up in the pet-friendly town of Wagtail, Virginia.
 
Inspired by her German heritage, Holly’s grandmother has arranged for Wagtail to have a Christkindl Market packed with goodies and decorations for the howliday tourists. But Holly’s mood takes an unseasonable turn when she learns that her old flame and childhood friend Holmes Richardson has brought his fiancée home—and she’ll be staying at the Sugar Maple Inn…
 
A love triangle becomes the last thing on Holly’s mind when her Jack Russell Trixie’s nose for trouble leads her to the corpse of a pet clothing tycoon. Now Holly and her dedicated detectives—Trixie and Twinkletoes the cat—must sniff out the killer to keep Christmas from going to the dogs…

Delicious recipes for owners and pets included!

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

KRISTA DAVIS is the New York Times bestselling author of the Paws & Claws Mysteries, including Mission Impawsible, Murder Most Howl, The Ghost and Mrs. Mewer, and Murder, She Barked, as well as the Domestic Diva Mysteries, including The Diva Serves High Tea, The Diva Steals a Chocolate Kiss, and The Diva Wraps It Up. She lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia with a brood of cats and dogs, including a snoopy Jack Russell terrier and a nosy calico cat. Her friends and family complain about being guinea pigs for her recipes, but she notices that they keep coming back for more.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

One

"Ouch, ouch, ouch!" Zelda whispered.

"I told you to wear gloves," muttered Shelley.

I could barely make them out on the dark porch. It was one in the morning, and Wagtail was slumbering. If it hadn't been for the moon, I wouldn't have been able to see them at all.

"Gloves are too cumbersome," Zelda groused. "I don't know how you can place the lights precisely with woolly fabric on your fingers."

I shivered as a cold wind swept through. My elf tights with one red leg and one green leg weren't thick enough to keep out the chill. We stood on Marie Carr's front porch, hastily wrapping colorful lights on the Christmas tree we were delivering. Shelley passed me the cord of lights. I wrapped them around my section of the tree and handed them to Zelda. "Hush, you guys," I hissed. "Two kids live here. You'll wake them!"

Wagtail, a small town in the mountains of Virginia, had experienced a boom year by catering to visitors who brought their dogs and cats for a vacation where they could be part of the fun. This year, instead of exchanging gifts with our neighbors or having secret Santas, the town had decided to make the holidays merry for our less-fortunate residents. My grandmother, whom I called Oma, German for grandma, had installed a suggestion box in the lobby of the Sugar Maple Inn, which we ran together. Anyone could stop by and drop off a suggestion for a deserving neighbor or a resident in need. And then the semisecret Elf Squad was dispatched.

An observant person might have noticed that Shelley Dixon, a waitress at the inn, and Zelda York, who worked at the registration desk, had altered their schedules and could have suspected them of being elves. But we were also taking turns at the Sugar Maple Inn booth at the Christkindl Market, so our schedules were all twisted around. As far as I could tell, no one had identified us yet. We weren't worried about the adults but were trying to keep a low profile so we wouldn't spoil Christmas magic for the children of Wagtail.

Shadow Hobbs, the Sugar Maple Inn handyman, had cut the perfectly shaped balsam fir earlier in the day, and we elves had transported it to the Carr house on a golf cart that we had decorated as Santa's sleigh. Our previous forays had caused rumors that Santa's elves had been spotted in Wagtail to spread through the elementary school like wildfire. We had been careful to dress in cute elf attire in case we were seen. Even Trixie, my Jack Russell terrier, wore a red and green dog dress with a hat that curled at the top, just like ours. At the moment, she was sniffing boxes of ornaments we had stacked by the front door.

The Schroeder children were local favorites and had received many notes in the suggestion box. At ages eight and four, Ethan and Ava Schroeder had been orphaned when their parents and only living grandparents were lost in a plane crash. Marie Carr had taken them in as foster children until someone adopted them. Everyone was determined to brighten their holiday.

"I still say we should just leave the lights with the ornaments," said Zelda in a low voice.

"Where's your Christmas spirit? The lights are the worst part of decorating," Shelley hissed back. "This way they can plug it right in, make hot chocolate, and hang ornaments."

Heaven only knew what the tree would look like when the lights were plugged in. Another frigid breeze blew in the night, and I was fairly sure my nose had gone numb.

"I read that the best way to put on the lights is in three triangular sections," whispered Zelda. "Maybe we should try that."

"That's crazy," said Shelley. "You have to zigzag them along the branches so you'll get depth in the lights."

They bickered like sisters, but Shelley and Zelda were part of the Sugar Maple Inn family. When I moved to Wagtail, I hadn't expected to find a family among the employees, but I was delighted that it had worked out that way.

My parents had divorced when I was young, and for the first time in decades, I was where I wanted to be for Christmas-in Wagtail. No planes, no trains, no hasty visits, and best of all, no arguments about where I should be and when. My parents had both started new families, and while I loved them dearly, the truth was that I always felt like an outsider at their new homes.

I had such happy childhood memories of Christmas in Wagtail, and while I knew things would be different seen through my adult eyes, I couldn't help being excited about spending the holiday in Wagtail. I looked forward to the ringing of the church bells and the possibility of Fluffy Cake, which I remembered fondly. Not to mention that my childhood friend and heartthrob, Holmes Richardson, would be home for the holidays.

"There. We're done," whispered Shelley.

At that moment, I spied a flutter in the curtain on the window that overlooked the porch.

"Dash away now!" I whispered, jumping off the porch.

Thank goodness our rush to the sleigh-golf cart caught Trixie's interest and she leaped on board with us. The electric golf cart couldn't go too terribly fast, but I gunned it as Zelda shook sleigh bells attached to a leather horse harness. The merry tinkle made me grin every time. What could be more fun?

"Did you really say dash away?" Shelley laughed.

"It just came out. I guess I'm in the spirit of the season."

At that moment, a light blazed upon us, so bright that it briefly blinded me, and I slammed the brakes.

Trixie yelped in surprise.

"It's a sign from heaven," breathed Zelda with wonder in her tone.

I blinked and gazed around.

"Not unless the Grinch has a heavenly connection," muttered Shelley.

She pointed to our right. I squinted against the glare. A gigantic Grinch with huge devious eyes loomed over the roofs of the houses. He must have just been turned on because we would surely have noticed him before. There were no high-rises, billboards, or garish lighting in Wagtail. The moon was usually the only light in the night sky. The Grinch's head had a green cast and glowed as though a strong light must be inside. I guessed it was a blow-up figure.

Even though we were a couple of blocks away, we could hear the notes of "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" coming from the ghastly fellow.

"I'm all for holiday fun," said Zelda, "but if I thought that guy was going to come down my chimney, I would brick it up. Not to mention that I don't think anyone in the neighborhood, including me, will get much sleep tonight."

I dropped off Zelda first. The repeating song was growing annoying, and lights were flicking on inside houses all over the neighborhood.

Shelley lived on the other side of town, where it was blissfully quiet and only twinkling Christmas lights on trees and rooflines glowed in the night. I drove the electric golf cart back in the direction of the giant Grinch to Rose Richardson's detached garage, where I parked and closed the door. Holmes's grandmother, Rose, was like a grandmother to me too, and happened to be my Oma's best friend. We were hiding the sleigh-golf cart in her garage so children wouldn't see it around town during the day.

Trixie and I walked back to the inn on the path that meandered through the green, the park in the center of Wagtail, which wasn't so green now that snow lay on it. We passed the giant Christmas tree...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1101988584
• ISBN 13: 9781101988589
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GPSR Kontakt; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland