No Cats Allowed

A Cat in the Stacks Mystery #7

by Miranda James

Berkley Prime Crime

Mystery

February 20, 2016

ISBN-10: 0425277747

ISBN-13: 9780425277744

Available in: Hardcover

No Cats Allowed
by Miranda James

In the latest mystery in the New York Times
bestselling Cat in the Stacks series, librarian Charlie
Harris and his Maine Coon cat Diesel must clear a friend
when the evidence is stacked against her…

Springtime in Mississippi is abloom with beauty, but the
library’s employees are too busy worrying to stop and
smell the flowers. The new library director, Elwyn Dillard,
is a brash, unfriendly Yankee who’s on a mission to
cut costs—and his first targets are the archive and
the rare book collection.

As annoying as a long-overdue book, Dillard quickly raises
the hackles of everyone on staff, including Charlie’s
fiery friend Melba—whom Dillard wants to replace with
someone younger. But his biggest offense is declaring all
four-legged creatures banned from the stacks.

With enemies aplenty, the suspect list is long when
Dillard’s body is discovered in the library. But
things take a turn for the worse when a threatening e-mail
throws suspicion on Melba.

Charlie is convinced that his friend is no murderer,
especially when he catches sight of a menacing stranger
lurking around the library. Now he and Diesel will have to
read between the lines, before Melba is shelved under
“G” for guilty…



Miranda James' Bio

Miranda James is the pseudonym of Dean James, a seventh-generation Mississippian long transplanted to Texas. A mystery fan since the age of ten, he wrote his first novel at the ripe old age of twelve. The only copy of The Mystery of the Willow Key vanished years ago, but since it was highly derivative of the Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden mystery series, that’s probably a good thing.

A medical librarian for nearly twenty years, Dean has published articles on topics in library science, the history of science/medicine, and mystery fiction. His first book, which he co-wrote with fellow librarian Jean Swanson, was By a Woman’s Hand (Berkley; 1994). Jean and Dean won an Agatha Award for Best Mystery Non-Fiction and were nominated by the Mystery Writers of America for the Edgar for Best Critical-Biographical work for this popular reference book. A second edition followed two years later, and Dean and Jean collaborated on two further projects, Killer Books (Berkley; 1998) and The Dick Francis Companion (Berkley; 2003). In all he has co-authored or co-edited six works of mystery reference and one short story anthology. With Elizabeth Foxwell he wrote The Robert B. Parker Companion (Berkley; 200).

His first novel, Cruel as the Grave (Silver Dagger Mysteries) was published in 2000. Since then he has published eighteen more novels, writing under his own name and the pseudonyms Jimmie Ruth Evans and Honor Hartman. In August 2010 he launched a new series writing as Miranda James. The first book under this name, Murder Past Due (Berkley Prime Crime; $7.99) spent four weeks on the extended New York Times bestseller list for mass market paperbacks. The next book in the series, Classified as Murder (Berkley Prime Crime; $7.99), published in May 2011, also hit the NYT list. The third book, File M for Murder (Berkley Prime Crime; $7.99) is out now. The fourth book, Out of Circulation (Berkley Prime Crime; $7.99) debuted at no. 11 on the bestseller list. Book five, The Silence of the Library (Berkley Prime Crime; $7.99) is just out, and there are more books to come in the series.

Dean lives with two young cats, thousands of books, and thinks frequently about killing people — but only in the pages of fiction.