A Cat-egorical Triumph

Speaking of second bestsellers—it looks as though Rita Mae Brown and her feline co-writer, Sneaky Pie Brown, are following in the paw prints of their last Mrs. Murphy mystery, Claws and Effect, with Catch As Cat Can (copies in print: 50,000), one of three new arrivals on this week's fiction list. Though Claws was the ninth book in Bantam's immensely popular series (more than two million copies in print), it was the duo's first to hit the hardcover charts, spending three weeks on PW's list last March. At the end of this month, Brown heads to Sacramento, Calif., where her new book has been selected for the prestigious Sacramento Bee Book Club. (Unfortunately, Sneaky Pie has to stay home in Virginia to work on the next Mrs. Murphy yarn, due next year as a Bantam hardcover.)

With reporting by Dick Donahue