Catagenesis

Two humans, a bunch of cats, a space ship...and murder.

Han-Ja Gee has made a fine living on Trash Planet trading information and secrets with those who are willing to pay, either in money or in more secrets. He thought he knew everything...until a talking cat interrupted a business meeting. But cats can't talk. Cats are so rare that only very wealthy people own them. If he can find and sell some cats, he can pay off the life-debt he owes and leave Trash Planet forever.

Farah Shine Collins is the last human to awaken on the ancient generation ship, the Catamaran, two thousand years after it was supposed to reach a habitable planet. Her adjustment to this new world of sentient cats and a hardscrabble existence in a galaxy that barely survived a catastrophic war is not smooth going. And it becomes infinitely worse when she's asked to partner with an information broker named Han-Ja, who is clearly trouble, in solving a murder on board the ship.

A murder for which the primary suspect is Farah's mother. A murder that not even mind-reading cats seem to know anything about. A murder that was only the first in a string of deadly attacks that threatens to tear the whole ship apart.

Han-Ja just wanted to escape a brutal racketeer. Farah just wanted a place that she and her mother could call home. Neither expected to fall in love while locked on a murder ship with three thousand terrified colonists and almost as many angry cats. But if they cannot stop the killer, the collateral damage will be a lot more than their hopes and dreams. It will be their lives.

NOTE: This novel is the third in the Cat Ship series and features some characters and settings from the previous two novels, Catalyst and Catapult.