Our favorite mouse and watchmaker, Hermux Tantamoq, is up to his ears in trouble again. All of Pinchester is in an uproar over his friend Mirrin Stentrill's visionary new paintings-monumental portraits of CATS! The Pinchester Museum announces Mirrin's exhibition, and Mayor Pinkwiggin immediately vows to shut it down. After all, cats are not a popular topic in a city of rodents-and everyone knows they never really existed. While militant mice organize to stop the show, most of Pinchester's stylish set vies for invitations to the gala opening.

Then a mysterious old chipmunk appears in Hermux's shop with what he claims to be a map to the royal library of a prehistoric kingdom of cats. Before long Hermux is hot on a trail of treachery and deceit that leads all the way from Pinchester to an ancient tomb that lies buried in . . . The Sands of Time!

"A gripping story full of emotion and original humor. . . . Should firmly establish Hoeye as a break-out writer, one whose work can be favorably compared with J. K. Rowling and Brian Jacques." (Philadelphia Inquirer)