Ник Сайнт: Purrfect Sidekick. Purrfect Deseit. Purrfect Ruse [calibre 5.14.0]

The Mysteries of Max Mysteries of Max Box Set 11

Nic Saint

Puss in Books

Contents

The Mysteries of Max Box Set 11

Purrfect Sidekick

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Purrfect Deceit

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Epilogue

Purrfect Ruse

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Epilogue

Excerpt from Purrfect Swing (Mysteries of Max 34)

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The Mysteries of Max Box Set 11

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Purrfect Sidekick (The Mysteries of Max 31)

I was going about my usual business (napping, eating… more napping) when I was approached by a client to take on a very intriguing case. Yes, I know cats aren’t supposed to take on cases, since A) we aren’t licensed and B) we’re not allowed to carry a weapon, not even a concealed one, and C) we don’t have the opposable thumbs to count the fees. But I’m getting sidetracked here. The case involved a woman whose boyfriend was kidnapped then murdered, and my client claimed that the boyfriend had set up his own kidnapping (though presumably not his own murder).

Meanwhile Odelia was having a tough time dealing with her upcoming wedding, which was seriously getting out of hand. Her guest list had ballooned to eight hundred people and counting, and she’d gotten into the habit of tossing and turning in her sleep, causing Dooley and myself to be kicked off the bed. Not much fun to be a cat when your human is getting married, I can assure you! And then of course there was Tex apparently being unfaithful to Marge. So one marriage on the rocks and another one getting off to a rocky (kick)start. Oh, well. Just another week in this cat’s life!

Purrfect Deceit (The Mysteries of Max 32)

Ideally reporters aren’t supposed to take on paying clients. It’s against the reporter’s code—if there is such a thing as a reporter’s code. I may be thinking of doctors. At any rate, when Joshua Curtis showed up in Odelia’s office, asking her to catch a person in the act of being unfaithful, it’s only understandable that my human balked at the request. But then she took comfort in the fact that a juicy article might come out of this, and so she took the case. Little did she know this would lead to a triple homicide, which would put her on a collision course with her uncle, our local Chief of Police.

Meanwhile the buzz surrounding Odelia’s shotgun wedding still hadn’t died down, with many members of the citizenry upset and giving my human the stink eye. And then of course there was Dooley, on the lookout for the stork which he was sure would soon be delivering Odelia and Chase’s baby. And since trouble always comes in threes, there was the rift that threatened to rip cat choir apart, Gran acting like a loose cannon again, and yours truly being relied upon to fix all of the above. Okay, so maybe trouble comes in fours—or even fives! Such is life in Hampton Cove.

Purrfect Ruse (The Mysteries of Max 33)

When a woman showed up in Odelia’s office asking her to look into a case of a missing cat, obviously I was on the case. And lo and behold, it took me less than a day to find the missing cat… and a dead body, too! Luckily, the dead body was human, not feline. Now I know what you’re going to say and you’re absolutely right: whether human or feline, murder is murder, and should be frowned upon. And I do! Which is why I was immediately hot on the trail.

Or I would have been, if not unforeseen circumstances prevented me from giving the case my full and undivided attention: the Pooles were having a new kitchen installed, and some minor disagreements immediately cropped up. Disagreements that would unfortunately lead to disastrous consequences, which I won’t reveal here if you don’t mind. Apart from what I would like to call the Kitchen Wars, there was also the case of the GPS trackers, but that would probably lead us too far afield. Suffice it to say things looked bleak for a while… before turning disastrous!

Purrfect Sidekick

The Mysteries of Max - Book 31

Chapter 1

The day started like most days, namely with me waking up from a well-deserved and refreshing nap. The difference was that I woke up on the couch. I’d relocated there as a consequence of Odelia’s habit of lashing out with her feet. I don’t know why she’d gotten into this habit, as it was extremely annoying to say the least. Just imagine dreaming one of those nice dreams us cats like to indulge in, for instance about a lifetime supply of Cat Snax being delivered on your doorstep, or being the star of cat choir and being lauded and applauded by your peers, when all of a sudden you’re rudely awakened by a kick or shove from your human’s leg to one of the more sensitive and vulnerable parts of your anatomy. It’s not a barrel of laughs, let me assure you, especially when as a consequence of this intervention you are sent plummeting to the floor in a jumble of flailing limbs.

Lucky for us we always land on our feet, and so far Odelia’s strange new habit had not caused me any physical harm. But it can’t be healthy, these interruptions of the natural process of sleep. Not unlike a computer suddenly losing connection with an external hard drive. If this keeps happening something has to give, and that hard drive will eventually break down. And so it was that I decided, after the third night in a row where I’d been thusly treated by my erstwhile favorite human, to beat a strategic retreat to the couch downstairs. Like a husband being relegated to the couch after having misbehaved, with the main difference that I hadn’t misbehaved in the slightest, or that I am Odelia’s significant other. That honor is reserved for Chase Kingsley, a local cop.

Chase Kingsley isn’t merely Odelia’s boyfriend, he’s also her fiancé, and since the day of their nuptials was almost upon us, I surmised that this was presumably the reason she kept lashing out in the middle of the night, perhaps in the throes of some nervous spasm.

I awoke when Dooley joined me. It was still dark out, so dawn hadn’t yet arrived. My friend, a smallish gray ragamuffin, looked a little frazzled, and when I asked him about it, he said, “She kicked me! Odelia kicked me off the bed, Max. Can you imagine?”