Perkins & Tate Mystery

Nashville's Bart and the Cousins, in England on a road trip, have a chart-topping song. Unfortunately Bart also has an indictment back in the USA over an underage groupie. Keeping that hot news out of the London papers is a job for Doug Perkins of the PR firm Perkins and Tate. Doug soon finds that you can take the boy out of the country...but he's still going to run after jailbait. And when Doug thinks the situation can't get any worse, secrets about love and money start emerging faster than sad notes from the band's toothless harmonica player. What's really going on among Bart and the Cousins is a shocker, but even a spin doctor can't cover up its deadly consequences. Instead Doug may have to turn from PR to PI...and figure out who committed murder.

Doug Perkins doesn't dislike cats-he just isn't especially interested in them. But the struggling young London public relations firm Perkins and Tate can't afford to be choosy about the jobs they take. So when Doug is asked to do the PR for a glorified feline extravaganza called "Cats through the Ages," he doesn't hesitate. But it isn't long before he wishes he had hesitated. There are some very valuable cats on exhibit-even a few feline celebrities. Then the robbery of a gold statue of Dick Whittington's cat sets nerves on edge. The theft is not exactly a PR man's dream, but this disaster pales in comparison to the gruesome murder that follows. Someone has knocked unconscious the show's organizer, the universally despised Rose Chesne-Malverne, and pushed her into a cage with a pair of feral tigers fancifully named Pyramus and Thisbe-with predictably fatal results. Now it's up to Doug to find an elusive killer who appears to have nine lives of his own.

A trip to London turns deadly … until a cat helps foil a nearly purrfect crime. Larkin's Luxury Tours Number 79 is a traveler's nightmare. The problems started in Zurich, when one of the group died under mysterious circumstances. Now the remaining tour members have landed in London, tight-lipped, fearful, and ready to ask for their money back. It's up to Doug Perkins of PR firm Perkins and Tate to restore their spirits. Naturally, for the restoration of spirits Doug arranges a pub crawl, and with the help of his cat, Pandora, he's jollying them back into being happy campers (at the best hotels, of course). Then foul play strikes again. Now Doug, assisted by Pandora's feline ability to smell a rat, needs to find out which tourist hides a preference for bed, breakfast, and murder.

Doug Perkins, his partner Gerry, and their cat, Pandora, have one job to do: spin gaffes into gold. But this cozy little London PR agency-a better environment for Pandora than profits-is about to be involved in a disastrous affaire dentaire. Endicott Zayle, dentist to the rich and famous-as well as to Doug and Gerry-has a problem of royal proportions. He just killed a beautiful woman with an experimental anesthetic. Or did he? By the time Doug arrives on the scene, the corpse is up and walking around-and someone else is dead instead. With Endicott losing his grip, and a line of women all claiming personal interest in the deceased, scandal is afoot. And so is a second dose of murder. For Doug, Perry, and Pandora, making this mess look good will mean sorting through an old man's madness, a young man's foolishness, and a tooth-and-nail case of cat fighting-no holds barred.