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Category:
Mystery/Suspense
Publisher: Boomerang Books
Type: Fiction
Pages: 322
Copyright: Aug. 23, 2021
ISBN-13: 9781736351901
Price: $3.99 (eBook)
Eighth book in the Cat Caliban mystery series, featuring Cincinnati's newest, oldest, funniest detective-in-training.
"Maybe you think I was replaying this conversation in my head after I yanked the ripcord. Maybe you think that after the parachute jerked me up and after the pain in my near-dislocated shoulders subsided into a steady ache, I applied my investigative faculties to the case at hand while drifting earthward like a fallen leaf, thinking, 'This is quite a two-pipe problem.'”
World War II veteran pilot Toots Magruder survived sabotage, criminal negligence, slander, and friendly fire during the war before crash landing her plane in the middle of a suburban Fourth of July picnic. But two of her former WASP cohorts have recently died and now she appears to be next on the killer’s hit list. Can detective Cat Caliban and her partner Moses Fogg catch the murderer before another plane goes down? Can Cat survive two plane rides, a parachute jump, and a round of golf?
Excerpt
The floor plunged. I hung suspended in space for a heartbeat, then dropped. The floor leapt, slammed my soles and jolted my spine. The shock threw me sideways and my shoulder struck metal. I thrust out a hand to steady myself, but I couldn’t find anything to hang on to.
The air was thickening with smoke.
A hand closed over mine and guided it to a metal bar. Nearby, below me, someone had opened a door and warm air and smoke rushed in. A flash of light caught my eye. Across from me, my photographer, who was also my business partner, was lowering his camera, his mustache twitching with what I knew to be a smile of gratification. If I could have released my grip on the bar that held me upright, I would have lunged at him and shoved the goddamned camera down his throat. Leaning against his leg was a golden retriever hard pressed at this instant to live up to his name, which was Happy. The wind flattened the dog’s coat. He was wearing a harness and backpack, as well as an odd little helmet like a miner’s helmet, with a light like a flashlight surrounded by tiny lights that glittered in the smoky air. Surreal. Maybe I was having a nightmare.
My eyes stung and watered. In my ear, above the roar of the single remaining engine and the rushing air, a woman’s voice shouted, “Remember, count to ten and then pull.” A hand guided my free hand to a cord dangling from the harness that bound my heaving chest.
The floor dropped again. My arm was nearly jerked from its socket as I tightened my grip in panic. Everything tilted.
Firm hands at my waist were pushing me toward the open door. Smoke blinded me. I clung to the metal bar.
But it was a larger, firmer hand that shoved me out, a deeper voice
I plunged, and in the three-count before I yanked the cord, I had time for one thought: I need me a new partner.
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