Cats in the Mouse House: A Nicholas Drake Novel

Cats in the Mouse House launches a mystery/techno thriller series in the spirit of Rex Stout and Michael Crichton. Created by Michael and Mary B. Woods, co-authors of 50 published books on science and technology, the Nicholas Drake novels unfold from Towering Oaks, an updated Civil War era plantation in the Virginia countryside near Washingtion, DC. Home of Nicholas Drake, former FBI director turned news media magnate and private investigator and his flagship newspaper, Towering Oaks gives Drake a venue for solving crimes when not occupied by a compulsion to craft a new breed olive trees that will survive northern winters. Drake and confidential assistant John Kornecki repurpose reporters from the newspaper empire as investigators in their work. In Cats in the Mouse House, fires are mysteriously killing workers at the world’s biggest mouse factory. The “Mouse House” at the National Institutes of Health produces 20,000 laboratory mice each year. Medicine’s test tubes on four feet, stand-ins for humans in experiments that cannot be done with people. Drake and Kornecki discover that the fire victims have something in common. They all owned Mau cats. Exotic, beautiful, costly, Maus were the cats the ancient Egyptians worshiped as gods. As the deaths mount in this tale - rich with true-to-life glimpses of the world of news media and science - Drake uses a ruse to get reporters inside the Mouse House. They uncover a nefarious scheme to use that government facility for private gain.