The Cat Who Sang for the Birds

It all began when someone spray-painted WITCH on the side of Widow Coggin's barn on Trevelyan Road. Then someone stole some sketches of nudes from Pickax's new Art Center across the way. A few scattered drops of blood on the floor near the cage of a resident parrot - a parrot who happens to have a penchant for talking dirty - indicate that the thief did not escape without a mark.
When a fire erupts on the Coggin farm, taking the life of Widow Coggin, Qwilleran is determined to discover who, of all those who might have liked to see the eccentric old woman removed from the land, could be responsible. Throw in the disappearance of a young artist, evidence that some of the leading families of Pickax are descended from bootleggers, and an anti-computer uprising at the town library, and springtime in Pickax turns out to be anything but peaceful.