The Multiple Cat (Camden S.) - Softcover

Babson, Marian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0754039625 ISBN 13: 9780754039624

Publisher: Chivers Large print (Chivers, Windsor, Paragon & C, 2000

Synopsis

The latest in Marian Babson’s delightfully dippy series of mysteries where bitchiness, gossip and cats are centre stage.

When Annabel Hinchby-Smythe is mistaken for a top interior designer and invited to redecorate a reclusive millionaire’s London flat, she little realizes what the deception will lead to. Initially she hopes that her entrée into Arthur Arbuthnot’s secret world will provide her with titbits to feed to the gossip columns, and indeed his shabby mansion flat houses a motley and largely disagreeable group of relatives and hangers-on. Only Sally, a cat rescued from the streets, seems to have a place in Arbuthnot’s affections, although she is loathed by everyone else.

As Annabel wrestles with the mysteries of material samples, the level of tension within the cavernous flat rises. Family members are at each other’s throats, lawyers come and go, and Arbuthnot’s housekeeper succumbs increasingly to hysteria. Anything could happen, and does: the millionaire’s body is discovered in his inner sanctum. The family are quick to cover up any suggestion that it might be a murder, but Annabel is profoundly suspicious.

And then the bombshell drops: Sally is the main beneficiary of the will, and whoever looks after her controls the fortune. All too aware what this means for the cat’s life expectancy, Annabel spirits her away; the Arbuthnot entourage, however, are not to be thwarted, and soon any number of Sally lookalikes are being recovered by the greedy relatives.

Between posing as a designer, meeting the insatiable demands of Xanthippe’s Diary, acting as a cat refuge service, and solving a murder, Annabel Hinchby-Smythe has recourse to rather more martinis than usual.

The Multiple Cat is a funny and charming crime novel, which will appeal to cat-lovers and mystery-lovers alike.

About this title

Review:

‘Quietly builds to a purrfectly splendid climax’
Sunday Times of The Diamond Cat

‘190 pages of nigh-perfect entertainment’
Gerald Kaufman, Scotsman of Even Yuppies Die

‘Engagingly and amusingly done’
Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph of Nine Lives to Murder

From the Back Cover:

When Annabel Hinchby-Smythe is mistaken for a top interior designer and invited to redecorate a reclusive millionaire's London flat, she little realises what the deception will lead to. Hoping that her entrée into Arthur Arbuthnot's secret world will provide her with titbits to feed to the gossip columns, Annabel gets into character, soon finding that of all the assorted relatives and hangers-on in his life, the only one Arbuthnot seems to care about is Sally, a stray cat.

As Annabel wrestles with the mysteries of material samples, the tension level within the cavernous flat rises. And when Arbuthnot is found dead in his inner sanctum, all hell is let loose. Especially when it transpires that the main beneficiary of the will is Sally, and that whoever looks after her has control of the fortune. From being a barely tolerated pet, Sally suddenly becomes very popular indeed, and Annabel, all too aware of what this means for her life expectancy, decides to spirit Sally away. But she soon discovers that posing as a designer, running a cat-refuge service and meeting the insatiable demands of Xanthippe's Diary, not to mention solving a murder, means that she has recourse to rather more martinis than usual.

'The Multiple Cat' is a funny and charming novel, which will appeal to cat-lovers and mystery-lovers alike.

About this edition

• Publisher: Chivers Large print (Chivers, Windsor, Paragon & C
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0754039625
• ISBN 13: 9780754039624
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272