Carole Nelson Douglas

"Her fine Sherlockian novels and her Midnight Louie books have made her a genuine mystery star. Pick one up and see why." --Ed Gorman, Mystery Scene

The author of 37 novels--mainstream, mystery, fantasy, science fiction and romance/women's fiction, Carole Nelson Douglas was an award-winning journalist for the St. Paul Pioneer Press until moving to Texas in 1984 to write fiction full time. In fact, she "found" Midnight Louie in the classified ads in 1973 and wrote a feature article on the real-life alley cat long before she began writing novels or Louie returned as a feline supersleuth with his own newsletter, Midnight Louie's Scratching Post-Intelligencer.

Carole the child loved the Sherlock Holmes stories, but the adult found something missing: strong women. That literary lack drives her multi-genre odyssey: "I began Amberleigh, my first published novel, in college because I was fed up with the wimpy heroines of then-popular Gothics," she says. "Since then, I've merrily reformed the fiction genres, reinventing women as realistic protagonists. Of course, creating true women means creating true men as partners and co-protagonists. I like writing popular and genre fiction because it's so influential; it forms attitudes that shape society." Many Douglas novels have received awards and appeared on various bestseller lists; her mystery short fiction appears in numerous anthologies, including The Year's 25 Best Crime and Mystery Stories, '93, '94, '95, '96 and '98.

Carole and her husband Sam Douglas reside in Texas with seven felines: two senior alley boys, Panache and Longfellow; four Persians, two adopted as adults--Summer and Smoke, Victoria (Summer and Victoria are shaded silvers like Louie's fictional ladylove, the Divine Yvette)and Victoria's shaded-golden daughter, Secret. The latest additions number two. Their first all-black cat, Midnight Louie, Jr., was acquired by virtue of a squeaky meow from an animal shelter concrete floor during Carole's first Midnight Louie Adopt-a-Cat tour of Texas. Carole found Xanadu, a species-confused chow-mix dog, dumped as a four-month-old puppy at a four-way stop sign near an elementary school. Carole picked her up because she was afraid the dog would be run over. Months later Sam saw Xandau's "twin" dead by the curb across from the school, so if you think a stray is in danger, you're probably right.