Award-winning author and cat-loving California native Shirley Rousseau Murphy brings us behind the scenes of The Cat, the Devil and Lee Fontana (on sale today!) and what kick-started the inspiration for this mystery novel. Shirley has teamed up with her husband, co-writer Pat J.J. Murphy, and surprises her fans by spotlighting characters from Cat Bearing Gifts.
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It’s the cats who run the show. As I begin a book I employ the card system some authors use, as well as fragments of outline, but soon the notes are pushed aside and the cats indeed take over—Joe Grey, Dulcie, Kit and Pan and the feral band. The cats’ own thoughts and longings guide me, the story is theirs and they show me clearly what they experience and what they mean to do. I can only follow, seeing in my mind their ploys and troubles.
But when, after finishing Cat Bearing Gifts, I turned aside for a little while from Joe Grey and his pals, I needed no outline for the new tale, it was already in place. Pat’s story of Lee Fontana was there, whole and real, waiting for me to join him and, unknown to us at first, waiting for Misto to step into the story to add his own feline charm and swagger.
I had already based part of Cat Bearing Gifts on Lee Fontana’s stolen money (with Pat’s permission) and on Lee’s mysterious little sister, so somewhere in the back of my mind, the connection had already formed. But we didn’t see clearly, yet, that Misto himself would move from Cat Bearing Gifts into Lee’s adventure, appearing not as the living cat he was in that book, but in ghost form. Suddenly the ghost Misto was there with Lee, insinuating himself into the action as he tries to guard Lee from harm. The minute Misto joined Lee to face off the devil we knew this was right, this was the way the tale was meant to be as Misto’s spirit, between two of his nine lives, battles the devil to save the soul of the old convict.