Copy Kat

PI Kat Colorado (seen earlier this year in Kat's Cradle) has been afflicted with nightmares since she killed--in self-defense--a man she had thought was her friend. Hoping that her new case will help end her emotional turmoil, Kat leaves Sacramento (against the advice of her lover, Hank) to go undercover as a bartender in an old California mining town, now a resort. She has been hired by a wealthy man to find the murderer of his goddaughter Diedre Durkin, who worked with her husband, Matt, at the bar they owned in Grass Valley. Quickly Kat befriends fellow barmaid Charlene, Diedre's sister Chivogney and husband Stu, as well as Matt, the town's pick as Diedre's killer, and their young son Toby. After worrying that she's making no progress, Kat knows she's on the right track when Toby is pushed over a cliff by someone who whispers, ``Go see your mother,'' and she herself is kicked into the basement of an abandoned barn during a friendly paint-ball war game. Battling black widow spiders and her own anxieties, Kat reveals new depths of vulnerability and trademark toughness as she unravels tangled family secrets in this tantalizing, rewarding tale. Author tour . (Nov.)