(Miss Perry was first introduced in No Grater Danger, Vintage Kitchen Mystery #7; you don’t need to have read No Grater Danger to enjoy Cat Got Your Tongs!)

I’m Miss Lois Perry, the second last of the Perry dynasty, a Great Lakes shipping family in the 1800s, with a far-reaching spice empire. Or at least, I’m the second last unless my great niece Morgan Perry finds a man to have children with and gives them the Perry name.

My house is known locally as the Nutmeg Palace and is situated in the Winding Woods neighborhood in the town of Queensville, Michigan, across the St. Clair River from Ontario, Canada. Our town shares, with Canada, Heartbreak Island in the middle of the river.

I may be in my 90s now, but life is still precious and interesting. I begin every morning with one cup of coffee and exercise. Muscles, including heart and lungs, are the machinery of my body, so I stretch, then do a half hour with light weights, chair yoga, and walk about the house. I have aches and pains but as I exercise, they ease up somewhat.

I have only my great niece, Morgan Perry, my older brother’s granddaughter. Her parents are both gone, so we’ve only got each other. Until recently she was living with me here, but that all changed a while back when she got herself a new boyfriend. I don’t like the change, and I don’t like HIM, but what can I do? She’s an adult. If she had a brain in her head as far as men are concerned, she’d be better off, but who am I to butt in?

I’ll say one thing: she’s good to me and visits almost every day. But it’s not the same.

Am I lonely in this big old house alone? Sometimes. But I have books, as long as my eyes hold out. After cataract surgery on both years ago they’re not too bad, though not as good as they used to be.

I do have my main hobby, looking after the colony of feral cats that has gathered on the big open bluffs at the back of my and my neighbors’ properties. I can’t get out there and feed them, but I pay for their food, and make sure there’s always someone to take care of things. And I watch over them as best I can. When the weather is better, they come right up to my back door. I do enjoy that, feeding the friendliest ones treats. We’ve had a wretched March, though, snowy, blowy, and icy. Even as a lifelong Michigander I can’t say I love the snow.

Lately a big part of my day is climbing the long stairs up to the attic – takes a good half hour and partway up I have to sit on a step and catch my breath – and looking out over the back of my property, across the St. Clair River to Heartbreak Island. I’ve got powerful binoculars. You’d be surprised how much I can see even after sunset if it’s a clear night with a bright moon.

There are strange lights and strange goings on, between Heartbreak Island and here in Queensville. I don’t like it. There’s something going on that shouldn’t be. I wish I knew what it was. There’s always been smuggling between the US and Canada, going both ways, but this feels… different. I don’t know how.

You can bet I’ll be keeping my eye on it. If anything bad happens, I’ll know.

And I’ll do something about it. Being old won’t stop me.

I gotta go now. Time to make the long climb up the stairs to see what I can see.

Signed: Miss Lois Perry, Nutmeg Palace, Winding Woods, Queensville, MI.

Cat Got Your Tongs: A Vintage Kitchen Mystery, Book 12
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release: March 2025
Format: Print, Digital
Amazon USA | Amazon Canada | Barnes & Noble | Kobo

A perplexing murder on a local river leads Jaymie into uncharted waters in the new Vintage Kitchen Mystery from the author of Sieve and Let Die . . .

Despite the brutally cold winter, vintage cookware collector Jaymie Müller is happy to help out a her friend Miss Lois Perry (No Grater Danger – Vintage Kitchen Mystery #7) by looking after a colony of cats while its caretakers are away. The location on a high bluff overlooking the St. Clair River makes for bone-chilling work, and her task takes on an air of menace when an elderly neighbor reports suspicious goings-on at the river. Jaymie’s inclined to dismiss the woman’s fears as the product of an overactive imagination, but it’s not long before she discovers a dead body there.

When it becomes clear the dead man was the victim of foul play, Jaymie turns to the older woman looking for more information. What she learns is that the river has long been used for illicit smuggling, and Jaymie suspects there was a falling out among thieves. But then mysterious clues begin turning up at the cat colony and another victim is found, and Jaymie realizes there’s something much more sinister behind the killings. And while cats may have nine lives, Jaymie has just one, and she discovers too late that she’s perilously close to losing it . . .

About the author
Victoria Hamilton is the pseudonym of nationally bestselling romance author Donna Lea Simpson. Victoria is the bestselling author of four mystery series: the Lady Anne Addison Mysteries, the Vintage Kitchen Mysteries, the Merry Muffin Mysteries, and A Gentlewoman’s Guide to Murder. Visit her website at victoriahamiltonmysteries.com.