Cat Under the Mistletoe: 8

New York actress and cat-sitter Alice Nestleton is caught up in her 13th murder case (the first in hardcover) in this witty puzzler. As part of her new job for a character actor who is going out of town, she must take his occasionally destructive feline, Roberta, to its first session with Wilma Tedescu, an animal psychologist. Wilma ignores Alice and Roberta after buzzing them into her ratty brownstone, although Alice can hear the woman and see her, in profile, through her office door. Finally going in to remind the woman of her presence, Alice finds Wilma murdered, one bullet through her neck, an odd frilly apron tied around her waist and a tape of her voice running. The police immediately suspect Wilma's younger, foreign-born husband. But when Alice tells Aaron, her cop friend and lover, about the scene, he remembers an unsolved case he worked 10 years earlier--in which the victim was shot with a single bullet and was wearing an apron. Aided by Aaron, by her niece Alison and Alison's psychiatrist husband, Alice pursues the cases in her desultory way, finally connecting the two killings and bringing the culprit to light. Pen-and-ink sketches of cats at the beginning of each chapter add charm to this slyly captivating story. (Oct.)