When you are an inoffensive retired librarian with bitter personal experience of Evil Talking Cats, do you rescue a kitten from the cold on a December night?
Do you follow up news items about cats digging in graveyards?
Do you inquire into long-ago cats who voyaged around the world with Captain Cook?
Well, yes. If you are Alec Charlesworth that is precisely what you do - with unexpected and terrifying consequences ...