Tues. March 23

 Clea Simon - a former colleague of mine at the Globe - celebrates the publication of "Grey Matters," her ninth book and her sixth mytery with a feline as a main character, at Brookline Booksmith Tuesday March 23. Clea, like me, is a cat person. I've had a gray Maine coon tiger in my life since I was 12. I'm on cat No. 4, now. (First one died from kitty leukemia, second from renal cancer, third from a heart attack, at 7, fourth ... still scratchin' and clawin'.) My wife and I have ... several others, too. Hey, they're warm and furry and friendly and there's no college education money to worry about. 
Now, Clea wrote a book on the "Felne Mystique" and then moved her interest into novelist's mode. We asked her what's up with her kitty here, a ghost cat.

"Why a ghost cat?," e-mailed back, rhetorically. "Why not? Although the idea may seem a bit bizarre, any pet lover who has ever lost a pet knows the feeling: our beloved companion is still around somewhere, just out of sight. Maybe it’s because they are domestic animals, part of our households, but the house just seems too empty without them. We hear the clicking of their claws on our floors, sense the touch of their fur… just out of reach."

"That’s what sparked this whole new series, the Dulcie Schwartz books. In this series, which began last year with Shades of Grey, a hyperrational Harvard graduate student who is studying Gothic literature finds her own life becoming a bit Gothic. And after all, isn’t that what all our lives are about – the desire for control, and our coping with the failure of that control? Of course, 'Grey Matters' is also about murder. In this book, I really wanted to examine motive – what would make an otherwise rational person break. And so I’ve played with a classic mystery trope: in 'Grey Matters,' everyone – Dulcie’s office mate, her thesis adviser, her adviser’s devoted assistant… – seems to be hiding something. What they are hiding could cost them their careers. But is it enough to make them kill?"

What's Clea's flesh-and-blood kitty situation? That's Musetta, with her in the photo. Clea: "She's an only cat. I'm cat monogamous.  Musetta is the current cat of my life. She's a rowdy soul, very verbal - our little riot grrrl. She succeeds Cyrus, my eminence grisé, who lived with me and then me and [husband, Phoenix editor] Jon [Garelick] for 16 years as our perfect cat zen master."

The Tuesday reading is at 7 and free.

279 Harvard St., Brookline, 617-566-6660 www.brooklinebooksmith.com