Claws and Effect

A hard winter has locked Crozet, Virginia, in the cold, and the town is restless with it. Postmistress Mary Minor "Harry" Haristeen is as bored as anyone, so the gossip drifting out of Crozet Hospital is a welcome distraction. Then the person at the center of most of that talk is found dead, and the chatter turns serious.

Harry has never been able to leave a puzzle alone, and she starts asking questions. What she finds inside the hospital is a tangle of big egos, petty jealousies and secret affairs, any of which could have been reason enough for murder.

Meanwhile her tiger cat, Mrs. Murphy, prowls the hospital's hidden corners and picks up on something much older than the current scandal: a secret that reaches back to the days of the Underground Railroad. The danger grows quickly. Harry is attacked, and a doctor is killed in cold blood.

With a calculating killer closing in, Harry's best protection is her animal circle. Mrs. Murphy, the cat Pewter and the corgi Tee Tucker have to work out who is behind the deaths before the killer reaches Harry. This is a Mrs. Murphy cozy mystery by Rita Mae Brown.