THE CAT WHO WENT INTO THE CLOSET

Another of the author's rambling tales starring Koko and Yum- Yum. The all-knowing Siamese cats are presently sharing the rented Gage mansion in Pickax with oddball millionaire journalist Jim Qwilleran. Here, 80-ish Euphonia Gage, still feisty and energetic, is living in a plush Florida mobile-home park. News of her suicide startles the town—so does the fact that she left zilch to her grandson Junior Goodwinter, managing editor of the Moose County Something, for which Qwilleran writes a column. Euphonia's beneficiaries turn out to be the trailer park's owners, leading a suspicious Qwilleran to start asking questions—mostly by phone to Euphonia's talkative neighbor Celia Robinson. Meanwhile, there's a killing right in Pickax—of potato farmer Inchpot; there's also a weeklong snowstorm to surmount, plus chronicles of the 1869 Great Fire to endure, by way of Qwilleran's dramatic one-man audio-visual performances for clubs and schools. It's the cats, of course, who help Qwilleran solve his long- distance mystery—in a disheveled, determinedly folksy story sure to be enjoyed by the author's devoted following.