Cassie McGlone’s cat boarding and grooming business is swept up into two mysteries. When Cassie’s assistant Sarah Wilcox asks for her help rehoming some cats owned by two elderly hoarders her church is helping, Cassie’s heart says yes. But things get even more complicated when one of the owners is murdered. Soon she and Sarah are trying to discover who killed Bernice and is victimizing her husband Chester, but will they be the next victims instead?

The mysteries mount as Cassie takes on a new  boarder, a Himalayan named Leya, whose family, the Fosters, is caught up in a stressful historical home renovation. When Cassie finds the wife Gillian Foster dead, was it an accident, suicide or murder? Cassie and Detective Angela Bonelli of the Chadwick, New Jersey police team up to get the answers. But the suspects include Cassie’s handyman friend, Nick Janos, as well as Donald, Gillian’s husband, and Whitney, her teenaged daughter, to say nothing of the decorator, caterers and others harassed by Gillian.

A new mystery by Eileen Watkins is always worth setting aside reading time and Claw & Disorder is no exception. She has created a core of multi-dimensional characters, develops intriguing plots (with a double mystery this time) and a touch of romance and well developed subplots.

5 stars