Kitty Hitter (Five Star Mystery Series) - Hardcover

Reissued in 2013 with a new title: The Night Falconer

This is not your mother's cat mystery. No one would ever mistake Virginia private investigator and falconer Frank Pavlicek for Ace Ventura. But when the ex homicide detective is asked to return to New York City to help find a physician/animal rights activist's missing feline, the stage is set for one of the most bizarre cases of Frank's career. Are the doctor's accusations true? Has the eccentric developer of her luxury apartment building actually hired a hit man to kill her pet by stealing the poor creature and hunting the kitty down with a bird of prey? Turns out, the doc and some of her fellow apartment owners are embroiled in a rancorous legal dispute with the builder. Other pets are missing too and witnesses claim to have spotted a specter-like figure prowling Central Park at night carrying a giant owl. With the help of his daughter Nicole, sometime partner Jake Toronto, and tough-nosed PI Darla Barnes, Frank soon discovers more is at stake than any of them had imagined. Chasing the mysterious falconer, they stumble upon an anonymous, half-dead child. Darla is shot and seriously wounded. To make matters worse, a reporter more interested in a bizarre story than in pursuing facts interferes along with competing camps of protestors. Not to mention Frank's rekindled romance with erstwhile flame Marcia D'Angelo. In the end, both the good doctor and the developer must come clean about their respective agendas, exposing a true evil that has escaped unnoticed. Overcoming such an evil will take every skill in Frank's hunting bag, the courage of a most unlikely band of survivors . . . and a sacrifice by a heart as big as New York City and all outdoors.