It’s the heart of the busy season, and JJ’s House of Purrs is booming. Maddie James has given in to her friend Katrina’s pleas to open up the cafe to more than ten felines. In fact, they are up to fifteen, made slightly easier by the renovations they’ve done on the house, and the fact that volunteers are coming out of the woodwork to help with the caretaking.

In fact, Maddie’s cafe is making such a splash that she’s getting national attention. The people from the East Coast Animal Rescue League are quite interested in the cafe, and so Maddie accepts accepts a request to meet with Laverne Gardner, the executive director. Laverne shows up at the cafe and asks Maddie if they can partner on a fundraiser to support the local rescue efforts - and she offers up her celebrity endorser and her celebrity cat to sweeten the deal. Maddie, caught up in the prospect, offers up her sister Val to help plan the event.

But when Val shows up for a site visit at the venue, she finds Laverne strangled with a fancy cat leash - a piece of swag they were intending to use for the fundraiser - leaving Maddie and her rescue pals with a lot of questions to answer. Was her death a tragic one-off event, or is there something more sinister going on? Maddie has to figure it out fast, before anyone else in the rescue community is jeopardised.