Scruffy, Strays, and Skulduggery

A battle-scarred tomcat with trust issues.
A pitmaster found dead beside his smoker.
A stray colony hiding secrets hotter than a Texas summer.

Summer has Tablerock, Texas in a stranglehold. With triple-digit heat baking Wildebridge County and Silver Circle Cat Rescue's air conditioning wheezing its last, Ellie Rockwell-Rogers has her hands full managing a recently discovered feral colony on the outskirts of town—a scrappy band of strays led by Scruffy, a thick-cheeked tomcat who trusts humans about as far as he can spit a hairball.

But when Hank Dawson, Tablerock's legendary pitmaster and owner of Dawson's Low & Slow BBQ, is found dead beside his prize smoker the morning of the town's annual Smoke, Sizzle & Sweat BBQ Cook-Off, the colony's territory becomes the center of a murder investigation. Scruffy knows more than he's letting on—but getting a feral tom to talk, even with the help of Silver Circle's magical crystals, is like pulling bark off a live oak.

As Ellie and the gang dig into the smoky underbelly of Tablerock's fiercely competitive barbecue scene, they discover that rivalries over rubs and recipes can cut deeper than a brisket knife—and someone's willing to kill to keep their secrets off the menu.

Can Ellie earn Scruffy's trust and crack the case before the killer fires up again, or will the truth go up in smoke?