**Charlie Harris and his Maine Coon cat, Diesel, are embroiled in a new mystery when a cold case suddenly heats up in the latest installment of the *New York Times* bestselling series.** Charlie Harris is busy enjoying his new grandson when a mysterious man with a connection to Charlie's family starts visiting the library, bringing with him troubling questions about an unsolved murder... Charlie may be a proud new grandfather, but he and Diesel still have work to do at Athena College and the small Mississippi town's public library. He's too busy to deal with true-crime writer Jack Pemberton, who wants Charlie as the subject of his latest book--and who won't take no for an answer. A more appealing proposition for Charlie is spending time helping a kind, elderly man navigate the library's genealogical database. But he's shocked when he learns that the visitor's search is focused on a member of his own family: his late aunt's husband. Charlie befriends...
MURDER PAST DUE
CLASSIFIED AS MURDER
FILE M FOR MURDER
OUT OF CIRCULATION
THE SILENCE OF THE LIBRARY
ARSENIC AND OLD BOOKS
NO CATS ALLOWED
TWELVE ANGRY LIBRARIANS
CLAWS FOR CONCERN
BLESS HER DEAD LITTLE HEART
DEAD WITH THE WIND
DIGGING UP THE DIRT
FIXING TO DIE
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME
Published by Berkley
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
Copyright © 2018 by Dean James
Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY is a registered trademark and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the B colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: James, Miranda, author.
Title: Claws for concern / Miranda James.
Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2018. | Series: Cat in the stacks mystery ; 9
Identifiers: LCCN 2017042198 | ISBN 9780425277782 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780698182004 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Cold cases (Criminal investigation)—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | Librarians—Fiction. | Cats—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective / Traditional British. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3610.A43 C58 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042198
First Edition: February 2018
Cover art by Dan Craig, Inc./Bernstein & Andriulli
Cover design by Katie Anderson
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks as always to my wonderful and enthusiastic editor, Michelle Vega, also an inspiration. I am grateful for all the help offered by Jennifer Monroe and the team at Berkley Prime Crime with every book. My agent, Nancy Yost, is always looking out for my best interests, and I couldn’t have anybody feistier or funnier in my corner. Thanks also to the rest of the team: Sarah E. Younger, Natanya Wheeler, and Amy Rosenbaum. Y’all are the best!
Most of all I want to thank the many wonderful readers who are such ardent fans of Charlie and Diesel. I am truly humbled by your response to these books, and I will always do my best to create stories that you will want to continue reading. Thank you for giving me so much in return.
CONTENTS
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
ONE
I couldn’t stop checking the clock on the wall nearby. “Come on, three o’clock,” I muttered under my breath. “Get here already.”
The wretched clock refused to cooperate. It read two forty-seven, and the second hand seemed to be taking way too long to sweep around the clock’s face. Thirteen minutes until I could pack up and head home.
Diesel, my Maine Coon cat and near-constant companion, warbled anxiously from the area next to my feet under the reference desk. He always picked up on my emotions, and I forced myself to calm down. There was no point in getting a nearly forty-pound cat all wound up. Nor myself, actually.
“It’s all okay, boy,” I told him in a low voice before I reached under the desk to scratch his head. “We’ll be home soon.” I think the cat knew what—or really, who—was waiting for us at home, and he was as eager as I to be there.
