Grrreat things come to those who wait. And wait...and wait...and... *Tapping impatient paw* When is my new website gonna get launched, you ask? When it's durn good 'n ready, my mom tells me.
We've been super busy getting a new book finished, and also doing book signings for Finding Mya. Plus, there is a lot more exciting stuff going on at my house, but you'll have to wait to find out what that is.
Anyway... because we are here in Nashville at BlogPaws 2015...we decided to launch a pre-mew of something super exciting that will appear weekly on our new website:
Sherlock Herms™
Purranormal Mystery Series
Available August 2015
KimberleyKoz.com
Herman @TattleCat has a Wonderpurr life with a huge following on
Twitter and Facebook, plus he is the star of Finding Mya.
When author Kimberley Koz decides to write
mysteries, Herm is worried. Will he lose his position as her mews because he
knows nuffin’ about solving mysteries?
Herman decides to opens the Wonderpurr Detective
Agency. While waiting for his first case, his little sisfur Dori demands he let
her play detective too, or she will give him a migraine. Plus his brothers have
turned his Gen7Pets stroller into a tricked out Ride with a dazzling control
panel, but no instructions on how to work it.
Then Herman gets his first case, but he isn’t
allowed to leave the yard! No problem. Using Jackson Galaxy’s Cat-Crawl tunnel
as a magical portal, Herman and Dori travel out of their yard, out of their
neighborhood...and out of this century to take on their 1st Big Caper.
Published for the purrrst time ever
SHERLOCK HERMS™
The
1st Big Caper - Part 1
The
Wonderpurr Detective Agency had been open for business all of twenty minutes,
but my
phone hadn’t rung once. I flicked my floofy tail with impatience. How
long would I have to wait before someone hired me to solve a big caper?
It
all began a couple nights ago when Mom and I were wide awake cuz Dad was
snoring Classic 70’s rock songs in his sleep. We ended up in front of the
teevee watching a documentary on famous detectives. Mom told me to pay close
attention. She had decided to write mysteries. She seemed pretty set on doing
it. That made me nervous.
I’m
her mews, you see. I inspire her when she writes novels. I even starred in ‘Finding
Mya’ for her. But how could I inspire her when I don’t know nuffin’ about mystery
solving? If I fell down on the job, she might ask one of my fursibs to be her
mews—like my arch-nemesis Opie. He’s also my brofur.
With
that in mind, I paid close attention to the documentary featuring Sam Spade, Philip
Marlowe, Mike Hammer, Dick Tracy, Charlie Chan, and the husband and wife team, Nick
and Nora Charles. My purrrsonal favorites were Spade and Marlowe for their
hardboiled detective lingo, and Sherlock Holmes for his use of logical reason
to solve cases. Plus I liked his hat.
I
began to pace. Mom’s romantical comedy, ‘Mad Fling’, was almost finished. I
needed experience solving crime capers. Now.
Before she started plotting her first mystery. But what if no one hired me? Ever. I’d be washed up before the sun
set on my first day as a hardboiled detective. Plus I’d be out of a job as a
purrfessional mews.
On
Google I read that when you’re a detective, privacy is extremely important. I needed
an office with at least one window, a place nobody else used so I could detect
in peace. And the room couldn’t make my meow echo, in case someone eavesdropped
on my meetings. I’d had my heart set on an office in a dingy building, slowly
collapsing under the weight of time and despair, but I couldn’t afford one of
those. Until I got clients who paid me cold hard cash–preferably quarters since
they’re bigger than pennies and dimes–I was stuck doing business in our house attic
next to my mom’s author-office. Handy, but so not cool.
Overnight
I’d set up the kind of office Detectives Spade and Marlowe would envy with
traps for criminals and secret places to stash my detecting gadgets. My desk is
huge with lots of nooks and crannies. It came with my office. Actually, it came
with the house. It’s too big to get through the door without chopping to pieces.
Mom says our home was built around an older house that refused to let anyone
tear it down. Happily my desk is next to a window so I can clearly see my
suspects’ expressions of guilt while I questioned them. I also had a
snake-necked lamp to shine blindly into their eyes during interrogation. I’d
hung a bell over my door so no one could sneak up on me, and tacked a measuring
tape from top to bottom to tell how tall my clients were, in case they turned
out to be suspects. I’d even sprinkled talcum powder on the floor to trap paw
prints. I still needed a camera and a coffee maker, cuz detectives drink a lot
of coffee, but I couldn’t afford either of them, yet.
As
I waited for my first client, I pictured my office with a finished floor and
walls separating the open space into rooms. But nothing real nice since I’m a
hardboiled detective with grit in my blood. Why wasn’t my phone ringing? The
world is full of despurration and despair. Surely someone needed a caper solved.
I didn’t have all day to wait. I’m on the 8th of my 9 lives. Plus,
as the sun hovered at high noon, the attic—I mean, my office—had turned steamy hot.
I
tugged at my collar with its silver and orange enamel ‘H’ charm. I pictured Mom
writing in her air-conditioned office with sunlight warming her African
violets. I put my nose to the door crack to inhale the fragrance of lemony sunlight
puddling on the buttery carpet in front of her desk. I loved that sun puddle.
So much! I also loved air conditioning. I wondered if Dad would growl if I clawed
holes in the door’s coffin-like wood so some of that A/C could seep into my
office. What I really wanted was a frosted glass door wif Wonderpurr Detective
Agency in foil block letters, but Mom said “Ask your dad,” and Dad said, “What?
No!”
Maybe
if I sniffed enough A/C my insides would chill and make me comfortapurr. I
snuffled harder at the crack. A faint fishy odor seeped into my nostrils,
followed by a loud BURP. A thrill skittered through me. My first client had
arrived.
I
opened the door to see my little sisfur, Adorapurr. She wore her rainbow pawty
collar and held a box of cat treats. At first I thought she had brought me an
office-warming pawsent. Instead she broke into a commercial.
“Smittens
treats are made by The Honest Kitchen. They are cute, heart-shaped and crunchy,
all very impawtent to me. They are also 100% grain-free, made from pure, wild,
line-caught Haddock from the pristine waters off the coast of Iceland, all very
impawtent to my meowmy.”
“I
understand these tweats are made wif no fillers or by-products. Just pure 100%
dehydrated Haddock, packaged in the U.S.A. The Honest Kitchen didn’t get its
name by being sneaky, and that’s the troof!”
“I’d
like to thank the Academy… I mean, Chewy.com for sending me dis package of
Smittens. Eating Smittens tweats is like a pawty in my mouf. Smittens also
makes my tummy happy. If you want a pawty in your happy tummy, visit Chewy.com and tell them Dori sent you.”
“Are you going to share wif me, or snarf them
all yourself?” I asked her.
She
hugged the box to her chest. “Mine.”
“What
do you want, Dori?”
“Mommy
said I can pway detective, too.”
The
fur bristled under my collar. “I’m not playing
detective. I’m a hardboiled private investigator. And no. You can’t play— I
mean, be a detective, too.”
Her
eyes narrowed. I’d seen that look right before I got a headache. She claims she
can give migraines just by thinking one into your head, and I believe her. But
then, her eyes filled with tears. Oh no. I’d rather have a migraine.
“Meowmy,”
she yowled. “Hwermie won’t let me pway detective.”
“Let
her play, Herms,” Mom called from her desk. “Please? I’m plotting.”
Plotting! Had she started
mystery writing wif out me?
Dori
pushed past me. I told her, “Don’t make anything crash.” She’s clumsy. She
climbs stuff and stuff breaks. Since she joined our family, Mom has had trouble
focusing on novel writing. Between mew and I, she hasn’t written much beside a
grocery list in months. She’s always getting up to see what Dori destroyed.
“Dibs!”
She jumped onto my desk, knocking my cup of purrrple crayons to the floor. Several
disappeared into the cracks, never to be seen again.
“That’s
my desk.” I grabbed my piggy bank before it crashed, too. “You sit there.” I pointed
to a storage bin.
She
crawled on top of it. “Hwermie, why do yoo haz a piggy bank on your desk?”
“To
remind clients to pay me.” I checked my pocket watch. I don’t have pockets and
I can’t tell time, plus the watch doesn’t work, but it adds to my mystique. My
whiskers sensed I’d been open for business a full thirty minutes. Was I dried
up before I got washed behind the ears? A failure? A has been? A never was? I
didn’t want to be just another ordinary cat…although with my looks and
purrrsonality that will never happen. Still. I wanted to do something important
with what was left of my 9 Lives. I wanted to help my mom solve mysteries, like
Sherlock Holmes.
“What’s
that?” Dori pointed to the corner where I’d arranged a couch and chair wif a lamp
and table spread with much-read copies of my favorite magazines.
“That’s
where I will interrogate suspects,” I told her. “I’ll let them get comfortapurr,
and then hit ’em wif hard questions. And while I’m waiting for my first client,
I can read American Songwriter—you know I haz an ear for mewsic—and also American
Trucker. I wuv trucks. Especially big red semis.”
She
shook her head. “No. I mean that box thingy sucking on the wall plug.”
I
squinted through the attic shadows to see what she referred to. “Oh. That’s my CritterZoneAir Naturalizer. I got it last year when I was at Blogpaws in Vegas.”
Dori
sniffed the box. “What does it do?”
“It
attacks germs, bacteria, dust particles and neutralizes the coughy, sneezy, itchy-eye
stuff in the air.”
“Is
that a good thing?”
“Absolutely.
You know how miserable our pawrents get during allergy season. Me too. My eyes get
runny and turn crusty. But CritterZone Air Naturalizer reactivates indoor air,
and helps it to clean itself. Just like if we lived outdoors with sunshine and
summery breezes. It breaks down every day air contaminants and magically turns
them into clean-smelling oxygen.”
“What
are con-tammy-ants?”
“Dad’s
gardening shoes. Wet towels. Garbage. Litter box poo.”
Dori’s
eyes widened with amazement. “Weally? Maybe we should plug it into Fwank and
Opie’s pa-tooties.” She giggled behind her paw.
I
started to laugh, then coughed, because I remembered I was supposed to be a
hardboiled detective. In the documentary I hadn’t seen Sam Spade or Sherlock
Holmes crack so much as a smirk. “What’s truly great about CritterZone Air
Naturalizer is that it cleans up to 800 square feet wif out filters or
chemicals. Nothing more to buy. You just need to clean it every two weeks, but that’s pretty simple. Especially when
it helps eliminate odors along with mold spores and other nasties that can harm
those of us wif asthma and allergies.”
Dori
petted the softly humming unit. “But Hwermie, why do you have one in here? Your
office smells good.”
I
thrust out my floofy chest. “Why does the Wonderpurr Detective Agency have a
CritterZone Air Naturalizer? Because, Dori…crime stinks.”
Suddenly
the phone rang. I was so surprised I just stared at it. Dori pounced.
“Wonderpurr Detective Agency. Detective Adorapurr speaking. How may I help
mew?”
I
reached to take the phone. It was my office, after all. She turned her back on
me. All I could hear was her side of the conversation. “Mmmm. Oh my. Weally?”
She began to pace, winding the phone cord around both of us until we were bound
together like the legs of a store-bought chicken. I put my ear against the
phone in time to hear the caller say, “I’m willing to pay cold hard cash. I’m
desperate.”
“Despurrate
is good,” Dori said, more to me than the caller. “We charge fifty cents.”
Fifty
cents. I felt my eyes go round like two huge quarters. Cold Hard Cash!
“I’ll
pay you double to solve this mystery,” the caller shouted. “Today.”
I
gasped. Double? As in… Hm.
50₵
+ 50₵
?
(Cats don’t do math)
“That’s
too much,” Dori told him. “This is our first case. We might suck.”
I
would have slapped my paw over my eyes if I’d been able to move my arms.
“Fifty
cents is to be paid up front before we begin,” Dori told our first client. “Give
me the address.”
We
hobbled over to my desk where she smacked a floor board with her foot and a purrrple
crayon jumped out of the crack. I worked a paw free and wrote down the address
she meowed out loud for me.
What!
She
hung up. “Let’s go. Daylight is burning.”
“We
can’t take this case. We aren’t allowed to leave the yard, let alone the
country.”
A
knock made us hobble over to open the door. There stood my ginger-furred arch-nemesis-slash-brofur,
Opie. “I suppose Mom is making me let you ‘pway’ detective, too,” I growled.
He
elbowed past me followed by our tabby brofur Jack, pushing my mint chip colored
Gen7PetsRegal stroller. It looked different. “What did you do to my Ride?”
“We
heard you got your first case,” Jack said, “and needed transportation to get
there.”
“I
can’t go. It’s too far.”
“He’s
got purrformance anxiety.” Dori rolled her eyes. “Untie us, pwease.”
Opie
ripped the phone cord. Dori and I spun like twin yo yo’s. I think she even
performed ‘Walking the Dog.’
“We
took the liberty of adding a few gizmo’s to your buggy.” Jack unzipped the hood.
I was happy to see my mint chip cushion with my pink and green striped pillow
were still there, as I like to ride in comfort. Then he swatted the pillow
aside to reveal a control panel with a scary array of buttons.
“Purrrrty.”
Dori reached for the pink one.
Opie
slapped her paw. “Don’t touch.”
In
a flash, she wrassled him to the floor. Over their loud grunting and growling, Jack
explained the panel, but because Opie was grunting and Dori was growling, the
only thing I heard him say was, “Whatever you do, don’t touch the pink button.
Unless it’s an emergency.” He punched me in the shoulder. “And don’t stare at
the buttons.”
“What
kind of an emergency?” I rubbed my shoulder. “What happens if I stare?”
“Bunny
KICK!” Dori punted Opie in his belly.
He banked off the wall with a thud.
“Behave,”
Mom shouted from her office. “Don’t make me get my squirt gun.”
We
rolled our eyes. She never uses it, just picks it up.
Dori
adjusted her rainbow pawty collar. “Gotta leave now. Before dark.” She crouched
in front of Mom’s research library in the corner to paw through books.
“Why
before dark? Will there be vampires?” I laughed.
Jack
removed a purrrple nylon mesh ring from my stroller’s storage compartment. He pulled
a string and it popped into a dazzling tunnel.
“Cool!”
I meowed. “What is that?”
I
swallowed hard. “If?”
Jack
gestured to the H on my collar. “Your bling is the key to your Ride.” He
pointed to the H impression at the top of the panel. “Touch your charm here.
Then meow the location and date, and paw the button that lights up.”
“Date?”
I repeated.
Dori
climbed into my stroller with a book under her arm. “Let’s roll.”
“You’re
not going. I’m the hardboiled detective. Not you.”
Her
eyes teared. Jack and Opie zoomed for the door. “Herms!” Mom shouted. “Let her
play.”
I
growled under my bref, “Sam Spade didn’t take his little sisfur on capers.” I touched
my H charm to the control panel. The buttons lit up. Pale at first, then
gradually stronger with dazzling brightness. So dazzling, I couldn’t stop
staring. I was fascinated. Entranced. Awe-struck. Hypnotized. Captivated even…
Dori
meowed the location and date. Not this country. Not this year. Back in time.
My
Ride shivered, then quivered. When it began to shake like wet dog, I yowled, “Maybe
we should put the hood up.” We were now bouncing around like a couple of LOTTO
balls, so hard my office looked blurry. The purrrple Galaxy Cat-Crawl tunnel
seemed to glow in the attic’s shadowy darkness. In fact, it looked like it was
growing bigger…or maybe we were shrinking smaller. Either way, my buggy was rolling
toward it, as though being sucked inside.
Then,
just as we zipped the hood into place, the door burst open. Opie and Jack
rushed in, waving their paws. Despite the bouncing and the blurring I could see
the fur on their backs stood straight up.
“Stop!”
Jack yowled. “I forgot to tell you—”
Then
he was gone. And Opie was gone.
So
was my huge desk, my interrogation corner, my piggy bank and my collection of
trucker and songwriter magazines.
Everything
was gone!
Stay Tuned for Part 2
New
Website Launch debute: August 2015
KimberleyKoz.com
/ Wonderpurr.com
In
meantime, follow us!
MAD FLING
Romantical
comedy
Coming
August 2015
KRINGLE
Coming
November 2015
FINDING MYA
Purrcentage
of sales benefits FourPaws Lifeline
