ANNIE AND THE GRATEFUL DEADA short story by Denise DietzGrateful Dead, a “pop culture” cat (he watches TV a lot), helps foil a cat-show robbery and, in the process, solves a cold-case murder.NOMINATED FOR AN ANTHONY AWARD!Why I wrote Annie and the Grateful Dead: My cat, Butterscotch, loved to stare at the TV, and I often wondered what he was thinking. One day I wandered past a local cat show, held in a nearby park. I stayed to watch for a while, and decided that this particular cat show gave a new meaning to the expression “herding cats.” As mystery author Denise Dietz and romance author Mary Ellen Dennis, my mind began creating “what ifs.” What if I coalesced my pop culture cat and the cat show into a mystery with romance elements? What if I named the cat Grateful Dead? (I’ve always wanted to name an adopted cat Grateful.) What if Grateful helped catch a crook? What if I added a motorcycle gang’s cat, Miss Evel Knievel, to the mix? What if I auctioned an animal character for charity? (A dog owner won the auction!) What if I had a surprise twist at the end of my story…?
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