Fat Cat Author Janet Cantrell/Kaye George

A booth at the Bunyan County Harvest Fair seems like the perfect

opportunity for Charity “Chase” Oliver and Anna Larson to promote their Bar None

bakery business. Unfortunately, plus-sized pussycat Quincy has plans for their

delicious dessert bars other than selling them to customers. After tearing through

their inventory, Quincy goes roaming the fairgrounds in search of more delights.

But what he finds is murder. One of the top contenders in a butter-sculpting

contest has been killed, and Chase is churning on the inside when she sees

Quincy’s handsome veterinarian, Dr. Mike Ramos, being led away by the police.

With a little help from a kitty with butter on his whiskers, Chase needs to find

the real killer and clear the doctor’s good name…

Janet Cantrell

http://janetcantrell.com

http://janetcantrell01.wix.com/fat-cat-mysteries - !books/cnec

Released yesterday, Fat Cat Spreads Out is the second book in the Fat Cat mystery series authored by Janet Cantrell (aka—Kaye George) and published by Berkley Prime Crime. But it is not this writer’s first series. Those of you who know her other pseudonym, Kaye George, also know she writes the Cressa Carraway Musical Mystery Series, the Imogene Duckworthy mystery series, and the People of the Wind mystery series, featuring a tribe of Neanderthals. The first in this series, Death in Time of Ice, garnered a nomination for an Agatha Award last year.  

Quincy, the fat cat character, has a weight issue. That would be bad enough, but he also has the mentality of an escape artist. Combined, those two issues cause no end of trouble for his owner, Chase, a young business woman who is co-owner of Bar None, a bar cookie shop with her surrogate grandmother, Anna Larson.

Please welcome Janet Cantrell (Kaye George) to WWK.                                                E. B. Davis

Your setting is Minneapolis. Is it located in a real Bunyan County? Is the county named after Paul Bunyan? I loved Paul Bunyan and Babe, his blue ox, as a child. How did these characters and stories come about? Were they really legends?

Minneapolis, of course, is real. The Dinkytown neighborhood where the Bar Non dessert shop is located exists, too. But I made up Bunyan county. I named it after the local legendary characters. There are lots of tales of Paul Bunyan and Babe, the blue ox. I heard them growing up in nearby northern Illinois, where many of the local Swedes vacationed in Minnesota. Since Paul was a logger, the stories most likely started among loggers. They do hard, sometimes almost superhuman work, and they’re isolated from cities and towns for long periods of time. I picture them sitting around a campfire, or maybe even in a camp kitchen, at night, bragging about their own feats. I imagine there was some exaggeration and the stories grew from that. At least I like to picture that happening.

At the Bunyan County Fair, when Quincy escapes (again), he is drawn to the building where the

butter sculptures are in progress and unfortunately where a murder has just occurred. Why is Chase motivated to find the killer?

The police latch onto Dr. Michael Ramos, since he is found with the body when the victim’s wife sees him there and starts screaming. It could be that he was in the butter sculpture building to retrieve Quincy, who was getting his licks in by the sculpture the victim had been working on. But Chase thinks there might be something else. She doesn’t believe he killed the man. How could she? She’s very interested in the heart throb veterinarian with the chocolate brown eyes, even if he does nag her about her cat’s weight.

Larry Oake, the victim, is a famous butter sculptor. But I thought his wife, Elsa, was a more interesting character. The reader is simultaneously sympathetic to her and also greatly annoyed by her. Chase has the same reaction. Why?

Elsa comes on pretty strong. She is demonstratively grief stricken. Maybe a little too much so? Chase intensely dislikes her repeated assertions that Mike Ramos is her husband’s killer.

I know sculpting in ice and sand are common but not butter. Is butter sculpting a big event in Minnesota?

Butter sculpture is a huge event at fairs! I didn’t realize this until I did some background research on it. Butter Cow contests are very common and there are people who are at the top of this field, just like those who excel at other fair attractions: hotdog eating, pickle making, salt lick carving, hay bale tossing, hog calling, and many other weird and wonderful things.

Elsa’s pet causes everyone trouble except Quincy. Why?

I wanted Quincy to have an animal friend, since he’s had none so far. The pairing of a bird and a cat seemed unlikely enough to be interesting, and I have actually know cats with bird friends. Usually big birds like Lady Jane Grey, who aren’t easily eaten by a cat.

The story has many complications. One is the theft of The Picky Puss Cat Food necklace, which will be worn by the cat, who wins the custom contest held at the end of the fair. Patrice, Mike Ramos’s cousin, a kleptomaniac, took the necklace, but lost it. Why does Mike try to protect her so much?

She’s his cousin, he’s grown up with her, and he loves her. He knows she’s not a bad person, just a woman with a compulsory need to snatch things. She’s been trying very hard to overcome it, but isn’t quite there yet.

Why does Chase think the murder and the theft are related?

Mainly because the two things happen so close together. She has a hunch, too, just based on her subconscious assessment of things that are going on.

One of Chase’s murder-solving techniques is observation. What makes Chase a good observer?

Having been unjustly accused of a crime in the time just before the first book starts, she is interested in seeing justice done. She’s also smart enough to know what she sees and hears and draw conclusions. She doesn’t like to go crashing into situations, but to wait and see what’s what.

Chase’s unconscious mind has her humming appropriate show tunes. Are these plot points? Do you use music to plot your stories?   

In the story, Anna Larson, who raised her, was crazy about musicals and took her to them often. The author also loves musicals and wanted to use them to match the mood of what is going on at the time.

Other suspects are a father and son, who I’ve deemed the Black Russians. What motive do they have?

It’s not clear at first, but the reader needs to pay attention to what sets off the father. It has to do with the stolen diamond cat collar.

Chase has two complications away from the county fair. One is a passive/aggressive pregnant store clerk, Inger. Why does Chase put up with her?

She truly feels sorry for the woman, pregnant and turned out by her parents. Once again, Chase comes down on the side of justice. It’s simply not right that her parents are not supporting her after Inger’s boyfriend was killed overseas in the military before they could get married.

The second problem is her website designer, Tanner, who is broke, and keeps wanting her to have an interactive website. What does Chase decide?

Chase feels certain that a web presence will do the shop good. Anna, of the generation that did

just fine without it, doesn’t agree. Dr. Ramos, Mike, suggested Tanner to her, which is good enough for her.

When Chase finds a second murder victim at the fair, why doesn’t she assume the murderer is the same perp?

There isn’t any discernable connection between the two victims, or the murder methods.

Is Mike romantically challenged (are we missing backstory) or is his interest a payback for Chase’s valor?

It’s going pretty slowly for them, isn’t it? I hope things heat up a little in the future.

How does Chase redefine Quincy’s weight problem?

Weight problem? He eats the healthy cat treats she makes for him, the Kitty Patties that encourage him to eat his dry diet food. And at one point he his weight was down! He's not really fat, Chase says. He just needs more exercise.

How do you write four series, Kaye?

As Anne Lamott says, Bird by Bird, or one word at a time. I only work on one at a time when I’m doing a first draft. After that, I can work in some editing on another project. I pretty much wrote the 3 Fat Cat books straight through, although I worked in one other between the second and third. The second book in the Cressa Carraway series was almost finished, just needed some confusing details cleaned up. I’d been away from it long enough to see it more clearly, clean them up quickly, and turn it in as I was waiting for Fat Cat edits. Right now I’m doing the second People of the Wind book. I thought it would take me ages since the first one, Death in the Time of Ice, was very slow going, but it’s not that bad. I hope to finish it by the end of the year if not before. Then, who knows? To answer your question succinctly, it’s kind of hard.

What is the best news you’ve had so far in 2015?

That Fat Cat at Large was a national bestseller its second week out of the gate. I’m hoping the readers of the first book will do the same for the second—and the third!

Thanks for the interview! You made me dig for some of those answers.

Thank you, Janet/Kaye. Kaye updated her website recently. If you haven't seen it, please go to: http://kayegeorge.wix.com/kaye-george. Give Kaye a shout, and then visit her Janet Cantrell website.