it's Not a Cozy! by Mar Preston
It’s not a cozy!
My recent book The Most Dangerous Species is set in
a 12-acre cat rescue sanctuary in a village much like the one where I live in
the mountains in Central California.
Cozies are a genre of mystery fiction that often include
cats, domestic murders, amateur sleuths, and sometimes recipes. The tone is often light and airy and the sex
and violence happen off screen. I like them just fine when I’m in that mood,
but those are not the books I write.
Police procedurals are more in my line. The Most Dangerous Species features
a hotshot sheriff’s homicide detective from Bakersfield and a prickly village
patrol officer. The backstory of cat rescue is one that I know well, having
been a co-founder of the local SPCA.
Over the space of years I helped set up spay/neuter clinics, trapped and
fostered litters of feral cats, wrote grants and set up a thrift store to help
fund our work.
Animal rescue work makes you hate people for the terrible
things they do to animals. All of that crept into this novel. Don’t worry.
There’s no animal abuse in my novels.
Reading anything that hurts animals or children makes me clap a book
shut and never read that author again.
But I do include stories of working with volunteers, donors,
and suppliers. Our work was on a small scale. A cat rescue sanctuary that I
admire and support is Cat House on
the Kings. It’s near Fresno, California and welcomes visitors. Check out
their website. Now that’s the cat rescue
sanctuary I fictionalized in my novel.
And I’m dead certain no murder has ever happened there. It’s a “no kill shelter” where you can find
the cat of your dreams, perhaps even multiple dream cats.
You might like to check out The
Most Dangerous Species, however. I promise you an entertaining story, a
little romance, a few dark scenarios, and a menacing villain. It’s the second in the series. Payback
is the first.
--Mar Preston
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