Cat Marsala

Barbara D’Amato is an American writer, crime researcher, and playwright who also writes as Malacai Black. Her most known work is the Cat Marsala series that debuted with the 1989 published title Hardball. The Cat Marsala series features Cat Marsala a freelance investigative reporter based in Chicago. Her other works include the Gerritt De Graaf series, the Figueroa and Bennis series, and several freestanding novels. D’Amato has had a very successful career as an author though she worked in several different occupation before she turned professional. She has worked for attorneys researching criminal cases, as stage manager, tiger handler, carpenter making stages for magical illusions shows, assistant surgical orderly, and trainer with the Chicago

She was working on the case trying to free Dr. Branion who she believed was innocent of a murder he had been convicted of. Interviewing judges, and police officers and studying crime scene photos and autopsy reports, she conceived the idea of an investigative reporter, Cat Marsala. Cat is an investigative reporter in Chicago that may be described as hard boiled and witty private investigator barely making ends meet. Every novel in the Cat Marsala Mysteries has a different area of interest and plot, which means they can be read as a standalones. Given that the lead character is a journalist, she deals with a range of human activities and themes that she is currently involved in including Christmas tree farming, yachting, and the lottery. The series is thus very diverse even if the lead character and some of the core characters recur in most of the novels. The first novel is about illegal drugs and whether they ought to be legalized, the second is about yachting, and the sixth is all about farming of Christmas trees. However, every novel involves a murder mystery, which often puts the life of Cat the lead character and those of their loved ones in peril. What makes the novels so intriguing apart from the danger and murder is the excellent research of the subject matter that the author does. The novels combine entertainment and education such that the novels narratives not only provide fascination but also information as integral aspects of the