Hi! I’m Lani Nakano, Colbie Summers’ best friend. We live in Sunnyside, California, a small town outside San Diego.
Colbie owns Meowio Batali Gourmet Cat Food, a company that provides organic, human grade food for cats with delicate digestive systems. She started cooking for her own cat, Trouble, when she found her in an abandoned apartment, and learned that lots of her friends’ cats had the same problems. She started selling her products at farmers’ markets and the rest is history.
Like any good businessperson, Colbie has diversified into solving mysteries. I’m kidding. It’s definitely not helping her business, but she is building quite the reputation for helping her friend Detective Norma Chiron solve murders. With my help of course.
My day normally starts with some ridiculous decaffeinated tea that my wife Piper insists I drink instead of coffee. She’s a pediatrician and takes my occasional indigestion (which she calls chronic) far too seriously. I love the mornings when I meet Colbie to talk about investigations and drink coffee. She makes it strong, just the way I like it.
Most mornings, I head over to my studio. I design clothes using recycled material that I get from thrift stores all over Southern California. Some people call my designs a bit wacky, but lots of people with an adventurous spirit pay a pretty penny to wear my colorful and one-of-a-kind creations.
Right now I’m working with three gorgeous silk fabrics – orange and white stripes, orange circles on white, and white pyramids on orange – to create a wonderfully whimsical robe. Colbie says it looks like something a robot would wear to seduce another robot. I’m calling it Robot Seduction.
Later today, we’re having a meeting to discuss the latest mystery – the murder of an oboe teacher. Who would want to kill an oboe teacher? More people than you think! This investigation is going to keep us busy, especially when we start hearing rumors of a college fixer in town.
You can read more about Lani in The Trouble With Talent, the third book in the “Gourmet Cat” cozy mystery series, released June 18, 2019.
Single mom Colbie Summers has a lot to be grateful for in the run up to Thanksgiving. Relocating back to her California hometown has brought her irascible dad and adolescent son closer. Her gourmet cat food line—vetted by her trusty taste-tester, Trouble—is about to get a big re-order. And she’s made wonderful new friends and colleagues. Too bad one them has just been accused of murder . . .
Sunnyside’s most gifted students have been at the mercy of a shadowy network of college fixers—including an abusive oboe teacher whose recommendation is necessary to get into Julliard and a school secretary who alters grades for cash. When they turn up dead, Colbie has to untangle a cat’s cradle of suspects and motivations—from livid parents and students whose dreams have been crushed to an entire secret Facebook group of spurned lovers.
Suddenly, holiday preparations just got a lot hairier. With the big re-order now on hold and the real killer still at large, Colbie discovers that someone has been grading on a very dangerous curve—and it will take all her newfound sleuthing talent to land safely on her feet.
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About the author
Kathy Krevat is the author of the “Gourmet Cat” Mystery Series featuring cat food chef Colbie Summers and her demanding cat Trouble, the culinary muse behind her recipes. She also writes the bestselling “Chocolate Covered” Mystery Series under the name Kathy Aarons. Kathy lives in San Diego with her husband of twenty-seven years in the perfect location – close to Philz Coffee and the beach. She’s also a long-time advocate for youth arts education serving on the board for Playwrights Project and as an advisor for the CCA Writers’ Conference, a FREE high school writing conference. She’s also on the board for the San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime and registrar for Left Coast Crime 2020.
To learn more about Kathy, visit her website at kathykrevat.com, or on Facebook, or on Twitter.
All comments are welcomed.