Stray Kat Waltz (Kat Colorado Mysteries)

The Story

Kat Colorado -- 'a private eye with a sense of fun and brains to spare' (The New York Times Book Review) -- agrees to protect an abused wife from her homicidal husband, only to find herself wandering a twisted trail of deceit and deadly menace.Private eye Kat Colorado has always taken pride in being hard-boiled as they come. Suddenly, after the unsolved murder of a cop hits close to home, she's pretty vulnerable.Struggling to survive a mind-numbing personal loss, Kat resists taking on a new client: the battered wife of another cop, who's sure he's out to kill her. But Sara Bernard won't let her off the hook, and reluctantly Kat goes back to work.It's not long before things get ugly. Kat is nearly killed by a stranger trying to scare her off the Bernard case. Then Sara herself survives a murder attempt that ends a friend's life. Next, she commences a series of mystifying disappearing acts, apparently on the run from her husband. Everybody who knows Sacramento cop Jed Bernard claims he's the greatest guy in town, a real straight-shooter.It's clear that somebody's not on the level -- but who? Before she solves the puzzle, Kat goes undercover at a stylish rehab clinic -- where getting better is the furthest thing from anyone's mind....Wry and affecting, pulsating with suspense and tantalizing mystery, Karen Kijewski's Stray Kat Waltz is superb work from one of detective fiction's stellar talents.