It was the talk of the town: a horrible studio fire claimed the life of a famous local artist. The police investigation is mostly complete and the murderer's trial already in progress, it looks like an open and shut case. Then why is Dulcie convinced they are about to convict the wrong person? She must find out the truth even if it means putting herself and Joe in harms way.

Cat Under Fire is the second in the Joe Grey Mysteries. This one is more of a standard cozy mystery, can the cats uncover evidence of who the real murderer is before an innocent is sent to prison. While it may be handy to understand the cat's origin from the first book, this one could easily be read stand alone. I'm interested to see if the further books are similar or if Murphy starts to build on each story as she goes. ( )

Book two in the Joe Grey series pleased me more than book one, especially the last two chapters. We still don't know for certain how Joe Grey and Dulcie came to be able to understand, speak, and read English, although we are given some speculation.

An artist friend of their humans and the cats has been murdered. An additional tragedy is that the fire that killed the lady destroyed most of her works. An ex-boyfriend has been arrested for the murder. Joe would have been content to leave it at that, but Dulcie has been hanging around the window sill of the jailed prisoner as well as a window sill of the courthouse and is convinced he's innocent. (Dulcie's solution to sharing said sills with messy pigeons made me smile.) Now she has to convince Joe to help her prove it.

While courting a possible witness, Dulcie learns about another criminal scheme. How will she and Joe tip off the police? Joe doesn't want to phone and Dulcie is shy about using that particular instrument of communication. Joe was definitely being the voice of reason to Dulcie's passion and intuition in this book. Hope the big tom learned his lesson from how very right Dulcie turned out to be, even to her mysterious dreams about the murder victim's cat.

We are introduced to Charlie Getz, Wilma's niece. Charlie has found her art degree useless in making a living and is using other talents to get her practical business off the ground. Personally, I think she could eventually make good money with her artistic strength if she approached well-to-do and rich pet owners.

As in the first book, our feline amateur detectives are quite ingenious about overcoming their physical limitations during investigations. I felt sorry for Chief Harper because he didn't know how his anonymous informant got the information, particularly about one crucial piece of evidence that should have been impossible to find. I also felt sorry for the big, mean dog because I think his human was responsible for his personality.

Yes, I do plan to check out book three. ( )

Cat under Fire is book #2 in the Joe Grey mysteries. In this volume, a local artist is killed and her studio is burned downed, with the prime suspect being her ex. Naturally, Joe, your basic talking cat, is convinced he is innocent and so, along with his companion cat, Dulcie (also talking), they investigate and help to solve the case.

The writing, plot, characters, etc. are at the same par as the first book. That is to say, so-so. The human characters are not well-rounded, but the cats are. The plot was interesting enough, but not gripping. As for the talking cats, well, honestly, they didn't talk a lot in this book.

Overall, not the best cozy cat mystery, but good enough for a bedtime read when you are falling asleep. ( )