How does that saying go? No good deed goes unpunished? It sure is true today at the Double C Ranch.

Callie Garcia here, venting for a minute while I search for a missing cat. It’s just one more indignity I gotta suffer because I couldn’t say no. When an Oklahoma storm tore the roof off a resort’s arena, my husband Clint and I offered our place as an emergency alternate location for the Equine Excellence Event.

And now I’m tryin’ to find a pampered Persian cat before it becomes a snack for an owl or a coyote.

“Here, kitty kitty!”

My friends in the Rose Creek Reads book club are fans of felines. We all love Emily’s two bookstore cats, Mitch and Agatha. But I can’t have cats on the ranch, and here’s precisely why: too many predators.

If I don’t find Winston soon, he’s a goner for sure. His owner, Marcia Bentworth-Fallows, will have a conniption. That fluffy cat’s like her baby.

Marcia’s more temperamental than the twitchy Thoroughbred she rides. Or so I’ve heard. I don’t know the woman personally, but the rumor via the equine grapevine is that Marcia has a reputation for being driven and intense. The horses and riders she trains often make it onto the Olympic dressage and jumping teams. Not the crowd typically found on the Double C ranch.

So I’d better get busy and find that silly cat. Maybe Marcia already found Winston.

But where is Marcia?

THE BODY IN THE HAYLOFT
Series Name: A Rose Creek Mystery, Book 3
Genre: Amateur Sleuth / Cozy Mystery
Release: December 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Purchase Link

Bookstore owner Emily believes cats and mysteries go together, and she just might be right. During an equestrian workshop at the Double C ranch in northeast Oklahoma, a pampered Persian housecat leads Callie to a woman in a hayloft. The Rose Creek Reads book club springs into action, investigating the meaning behind the woman’s mysterious final words.

While creating a new murder board for book club, Makenzie hides her own secret – a potential layoff at Brieswell Pottery Works threatens her future as a chemist. University mathematician Shanice is happy to be dating famous horse-whisperer Sam, until he becomes a suspect in the murder. Lawyer Drew tackles a case involving mineral rights that leads straight to the Double C ranch.

The book club mingles with Olympic-level horses, their fussy humans, and disruptive animal rights activists flooding the normally peaceful ranch with drama. When the conclusion of the weekend event approaches, potential suspects will soon leave Rose Creek. The urgency to solve the murder escalates. Until a crisis throws the book club and the ranch into a panic.

About the author
Catherine Dilts is the author of the Rose Creek Mystery series, Rock Shop Mystery series, and several installments in various Annie’s Fiction series. Her short stories appear in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, with the newest one in the Nov/Dec 2025 issue. After a career in environmental compliance for a global corporation, Catherine now writes fiction full-time. Most of her work has a cozy mystery flavor, including the brand-new Ninja Grandparent Placement Mysteries written with her co-author and daughter Merida Bass. They also write YA science fiction under the pen name Ann Belice.

Follow Catherine on Facebook or Instagram and at her website: www.catherinedilts.com.