The Missing Maltese — Robert Harris

Claude Monet, basking in the glow of his first success as a private eye (Claude Monet, Private Eye: The Pilfered Paintings), celebrates by taking a two-day cruise down the Seine to Le Havre with wife Alice and dog Toulouse. All goes well until another passenger's dog, a Maltese named Chloe, goes missing. Everyone assumes the dog simply wandered off somewhere to take a nap. But then a ransom note appears, and the boat becomes a crime scene. That's when the captain asks Claude to look into the matter. Claude begins questioning the passengers and crew, and to his dismay finds more than a few people with adequate motive to commit the crime. The police can't be called in or Chloe will meet an untimely end. So it's up to Claude to put the pieces together before the boat arrives back in Paris in just a few hours. Can he do it? He knows it won't be a walk in the cake, but he's going to give it his best effort.***Robert Harris is a writer, inventor, and puzzle constructor with a background in Art and Cognitive Psychology. He is the author of more than 40 books, including 101 Things NOT to Do Before You Die, The Jesus Perspective, When Good People Write Bad Sentences, How Big is the Sky?, and the Claude Monet, Private Eye mysteries, all of which are available at amazon.com. Robert's website is artspace5.com.