Historian Katharine MacDonogh offers a richly detailed historical account of court pets from the Renaissance to the present, addressing such themes as the attraction of animals among royalty, favored breeds, special treatment and abuses received by pets, animal treatment outside the palace, and the origin of various species.

A charity dog show has Jessica hitting the road with her faithful one-eyed Dalmatian, Lou, and her tailless Westie, Max, for the palatial summer estates of Long Island's fabled East End. When she arrives, the posh seaside community is crawling with stars eager to take best in show for their beloved pooches. But it's murder most tacky when a celebrity photographer is felled by a giant ice sculpture at a $500-a-plate fund-raiser. Unable to resis the scent of the hunt, Jess is soon investigating a casting director's dream of potential suspects. But if Jess isn't careful, she just might become the next victim of a killer determined to prove she's barking up the wrong tree.

Grace is green-eyed, beautiful, a psychic healer - and also a whore. She walks the streets of Black Church to make a living. After years of horror and poverty as a brothel slave, Saul Anger was adopted into a life of ease, and now he has taken on the mantle of his dead uncle's house, as well as the leadership of a secret society whose figurehead is Anubis, the jackal god of Egypt. Dedicated to justice and to retribution, this society will destroy those it deems evil. There must always be blood. One midnight in the great clock-tower of the city, a man hangs himself - and secret desires are let loose. A demon now stalks the streets and alleys, slaying the wicked and the innocent alike. But can Saul locate the source of the destruction and tame it? Or will beautiful Grace - who has fallen in love with him - be able to stem this tide of madness and primeval terror? For, aided by the goddess Pasht and by all the cats of the city, perhaps she alone can turn back the clock.

Veterinarian and amateur sleuth Jessica Popper joins the cast of a theatrical production to uncover the killer of the Long Island playwright responsible for the play.

Historian Katharine MacDonogh offers a richly detailed historical account of court pets from the Renaissance to the present, addressing such themes as the attraction of animals among royalty, favored breeds, special treatment and abuses received by pets, animal treatment outside the palace, and the origin of various species.

CAN A SMALL-TOWN PET DETECTIVE HUNT DOWN A BEAST OF A KILLER IN ITS OWN LAIR? Veterinarian Jessica Popper is still basking in newlywedded bliss when neighbors Betty and Winston beg her to investigate the suspicious death of Linus Merrywood, king of the corporate jungle. On stormy Solitude Island, the Merrywoods have enjoyed the lion’s share of wealth for generations. But from the suspects to the surroundings, Jess feels as if she’s walked straight into an old-fashioned game of Clue—except here the stakes are life and death. There’s the butler named Jives, a sexy assistant named Scarlett, teatime in the conservatory, and a house with secret passageways, moving walls, and a wailing aunt locked in the attic. With a storm raging around the island and Jess’s least favorite police detective assigned to the case, things are looking dire until Jess’s lionhearted husband, Nick, braves his way to Solitude to rescue her. Now it’s the two of them against a family steeped in secrets—and a killer on the prowl who’s ferociously determined to protect the biggest family secret of all.