Books like Cat Under Fire by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

When cat‑lover Joe Grey volunteers for a nursing home therapy program, he must solve a mystery of burglaries, conspiracy, and suspicious deaths—all orchestrated by his feline friend Dulcie.

In the quiet town of Molena Point, feline detectives Joe Grey and Dulcie investigate a botched burglary and uncover a killer, turning a simple mystery into a whiskered adventure.

Hell hath no fury like a feline enraged. Though Joe, Grey, and Dulcie are merely housecats, they each have a strong sense of justice -- complementing their uncanny ability to read, speak, and use the telephone. And they're furious that Max Harper, police chief of Molena Point, and preferred target for Joe's harmless pranks, has been accused of a gruesome double murder. The fleet-footed sleuthing duo is intent upon restoring an old friend's good name. But finding the missing little girl who was sole witness to the crime won't be easy -- especially with a hungry cougar on the prowl, a cat-killer on the loose ... and the kittenish antics of Joe and Dulcie's playful new "ward" causing big trouble that could take more than nine lives to survive.

When a California earthquake sparks a series of mysterious deaths, a sharp‑sighted cat named Joe Grey and his feline companion Dulcie step in to outwit human detectives and uncover the truth.

In the seaside town of Molena Point, California, a chaotic wedding and a church bombing set the stage for a feline detective, Joe Grey, and his friends Dulcie and Kit to solve a murder tied to a love triangle, leading to a sharp‑clawed showdown.

In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950--and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia's family calls home. A dead bird is found on the doorstep, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. Hours later, Flavia finds a man lying in the cucumber patch and watches him as he takes his dying breath. For Flavia, who is both appalled and delighted, life begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw. "I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn't. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life."To Flavia the investigation is the stuff of science: full of possibilities, contradictions, and connections. Soon her father, a man raising his three daughters alone, is seized, accused of murder. And in a police cell, during a violent thunderstorm, Colonel de Luce tells his daughter an astounding story--of a schoolboy friendship turned ugly, of a priceless object that vanished in a bizarre and brazen act of thievery, of a Latin teacher who flung himself to his death from the school's tower thirty years before. Now Flavia is armed with more than enough knowledge to tie two distant deaths together, to examine new suspects, and begin a search that will lead her all the way to the King of England himself. Of this much the girl is sure: her father is innocent of murder--but protecting her and her sisters from something even worse....An enthralling mystery, a piercing depiction of class and society, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie is a masterfully told tale of deceptions--and a rich literary delight.From the Hardcover edition.

When homeless Londoner James Bowen rescues a sick ginger street cat, he is unaware that Bark‑adopted Bob will transform his ruined life into one of redemption, companionship and new purpose.

When Joe Grey the cat gains the gift of human speech, he must solve a murder he witnessed behind Jolly's Deli in California, racing against time to protect his nine lives.