THE MIDNIGHT LOUIE MYSTERIES

By Carole Nelson Douglas

The author calls her Midnight Louie mysteries "cozy-noirs." The critics find them to be witty, engaging novels with a darker realistic undertone, partially narrated by a hard-boiled, hairy-chested 19-pound black tomcat detective who prowls the mean streets of Las Vegas in CATNAP, PUSSYFOOT, CAT on a BLUE MONDAY, CAT in a CRIMSON HAZE, CAT in a DIAMOND DAZZLE, CAT with an EMERALD EYE, CAT in a FLAMINGO FEDORA, CAT in a GOLDEN GARLAND, CAT on a HYACINTH HUNT, CAT in an INDIGO MOOD, CAT in a JEWELED JUMPSUIT

Sam Spade with hairballs! Midnight Louie's turf is the sizzling asphalt-and-neon jungle of the country's hottest gambling mecca, Las Vegas--a 90's version of Damon Runyon's 1920's Broadway of gold-hearted showgirls and not-so-cold-hearted bookies. The novels contrast Midnight Louie's baroque back-alley first-purrson twang with the third-person adventures of a quartet of human mystery-solvers: Temple Barr, a petite public relations woman and an amateur sleuth with a penchant for high heels; C.R. Molina, a tough-as-Naugahyde and decidedly flat-footed female police lieutenant; Matt Devine, a model-handsome crisis-hotline counselor with a blank-page past, and Temple's ex-live-in lover, the Mystifying Max, a stage magician who simply vanished not long before Midnight Louie came into Temple's life. They live at the Circle Ritz, a 1950's round apartment building owned by New Age-ish, sixty-something Electra Lark, who also runs the Lovers' Knot Wedding Chapel.

CATNAP
Forge Books, 0-812-51682-6 $5.99

The inimitable Carole Nelson Douglas presents: Murder (a publisher), catnapping (Baker and Taylor), and two irresistible new detectives (one female, one feline)!

 Catnap will dazzle and delight her readers with its extraordinary sleuthing duo: Ms. Temple Barr, a 29-year-old public relations freelancer in Las Vegas, and the nineteen-pound jet-black tomcat called Midnight Louie who tells his own side of the story. As Catnap begins, Temple is pursuing a cat in the exhibit hall at the Las Vegas ABA as fast as her spike heels will carry her--only to stumble over a dead publisher--and soon learns that the founder of Pennyroyal Press, a paperback house specializing in medical thrillers, had as many enemies as there are attendees at the ABA--and that's 24,000.

 But that's not all. Baker & Taylor's corporate mascots, the genial short-eared cats known as Baker and Taylor, have been snatched from their ABA booth and must be found before they're done in. And first Temple needs to convince tall, stern, female lieutenant Molina of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police that Temple herself is not up to no good. The lieutenant has all too many questions about the disappearance of Mystifying Max, the handsome stage magician who vanished from Temple's life six months ago. Molina won't believe that Temple knows nothing of his whereabouts....

 What with Lieutenant Molina, Murder One, and feline felony, it's a wonder that Temple has time to notice the riveting Matt Devine, who's just rented a condo from Temple's landlady, in the circular building behind the Lover's Knot Weddng Chapel. But she does....

 Catnap is narrated in part by Midnight Louie, the sleuthing tomcat who led Temple to the corpse. (You thought it was an accident?) Louie's investigations are aided by his conversations with Ingram the bookstore cat and other felines, yet hampered by his resolve never to speak to humans. But Midnight Louie is one hardboiled, hairychested big dude. He always finds a way to bring the perpetrator to justice--and to enchant the reader!

"Two of the most lovable characters you'd ever want to meet: public relations expert Temple Barr, a petite redhead with a high heel shoe fetish; and the irrepressible Midnight Louie...when these two meet nose to nose over a dead body...the fur flies and the fun starts.... If you want a fast-paced, exciting, hard-to-solve mystery, with some of the most fascinating characters to grace a page..., Catnap is the purrfect book for you!" --Mostly Murder

PUSSYFOOT
Forge Books ISBN 0-812-51683-4 $5.99

Midnight Louie is aprowl again! Award-winning mystery author Carole Nelson Douglas sets her tomcat who's a private dick on the track of murder and intrigue on the sinful streets of Las Vegas.

 The game is definitely afoot as the trail begins at a striptease competition, where petite public relations freelancer Temple Barr is up to her spike heels in musclebound males, siliconed females--and murder. After a contestant is found hanging from her own G-string, the owner of a joke striptease busines turns up dead. Then two thugs assault Temple, looking for her ex-flame, a missing stage magician. Implacable female police lieutenant C.R. Molina wants answers now, answers Temple doesn't have.

 Meanwhile, Temple's relationship with handsome hotline counselor Matt Devine is heating up nicely, but he may hide secrets of his own....

 As Temple tracks the killer, Midnight Louie pursues his own investigation. Now that fading film star Savannah Ashleigh and the Divine Yvette, her purbred Persian and Louie's platinum-haired lost love, are among the endangered, this tomcat sleuth will leave no rhinestone unturned to find the murderer...

 "Midnight Louie is one heavy dude. Gourmand, ladies' man and world-class dog-baiter, this feline detective attacks crime tooth and nail. But if he lays a paw on my lasagna, he'll tangle with a real heavyweight."--Garfield, as told to Jim Davis

"What great fun! Kudos! Midnight Louie captured my imagination from the first page."-- Sandra Brown, New York Times Bestselling author of FAT TUESDAY

CAT ON A BLUE MONDAY 
Forge Books ISBN 0-812-53441-9 $6.99

By Carole Nelson Douglas, award-winning author of the acclaimed Good Night, Mr. Holmes, captivated a host of new readers with Catnap, the first novel in an irresistible new mystery series featuring Midnight Louie--a jet-black tomcat with an appetite for mystery and an attitude right out of Damon Runyon--and his red-haired human companion Temple Barr, a publicist in the glittering Las Vegas media scene. Pussyfoot, the sequel to Catnap, was an even bigger success, and mystery fans have been eagerly awaiting the next volume in the series.

 Cat on a Blue Monday is well worth the wait. Someone is stalking prize-winning purebreds at the annual Las Vegas Cat Show, and Midnight Louie is off on the prowl again. As Louie, aided by a telepathic Birman cat named Karma, follows the scent of the killer, Temple is delving into the past of Matt Devine, the handsome hotline counselor who's captured her heart. Soon Louie and Temple find themselves up to their tails in blackmail, extortion, and cold-blooded murder. Fans of foul play, feisty female detectives, and feline forensics are sure to find Cat on a Blue Monday just their saucer of milk.

CAT IN A CRIMSON HAZE

Forge Books ISBN 0-812-54414-5 $6.99

Cat Writers' Association 1995 Best Novel award

Cat in a Crimson Haze is the fourth title in the beloved Midnight Louie series. Readers have fallen in love with this tough-talking black tomcat whom Mostly Murder has dubbed "an irresistible combination of Nathan Detroit and Sam Spade."

 Las Vegas is Louie's playground, and he's the first in line for anything, be it a tasty carp from a casino's fishpond--or a fresh crime scene. Louie condescends to share his life with his companion Temple Barr--a petite, redheaded public relations expert who has a high-heel shoe fetish and a nose for trouble--and when a case comes their way, the sparks (and fur) always fly.

 And what a case they've landed this time. Temple agrees to do an image makeover for the Crystal Phoenix Casino as part of Las Vegas's quest to turn the old Sin City into America's Family Entertainment Central, and it isn't long before she and Louie are up to their paws in theft, missing treasure, and the mystery of a ghostly murde from Las Vegas's dark past. As usual, it's up to Louie to set things right.

 And save Temple from an all-too-real killer. 

CAT IN A DIAMOND DAZZLE
Forge Books ISBN 0-812-55506-6....$6.99 

Between murders, high heel addict Temple must also scrounge Las Vegas's latest Superhotel attractions while hunting a bedazzling Cinderella shoe with black cats etched in Austrian crystals. But has someone hired PI Eightball O'Rourke to track down the prize spikes?

 Midnight Louie wrestles his own romantic conundrums: his lost love, the Divine Yvette, is back, but Louie has a rival in Yummy Tum-tum-tummy catfood spokescat Maurice. The tough-talking tomcat detective must mend both his and Temple's lovelife . . . help her beat the mysterious competitor to his signature shoe . . . and solve the murders before Temple, up to her ripped bodice in onstage groping sessions with Incredible Hunk pageant candidates, gets loved to death.

CAT WITH AN EMERALD EYE
Forge Books ISBN 0-812-54012-3 $6.99

Murder takes a spectral spin in feline supersleuth Midnight Louie's sixth and spookiest crime caper, Cat in an Emerald Eye. Murder strikes on the dot of Midnight in this Halloween case, and the question is not whodunit, but whatdunit!

Can a spirit kill? Temple Barr, Las Vegas PR woman extraordinaire, confronts this puzzle when she joins landlady Electra Lark and a few New Age friends for a Halloween Eve seance held in a spectacular haunted house attraction. Similar rituals to recall late, great magician Harry Houdini from the grave (as he had sworn to do) have been repeated since his 1926 death. But this particular seance becomes a wake of an all-too-human kind when a ghostly presence strikes one of the gathered pyschics dead.

The scenario grows eerier once the victim's hidden identity emerges: a veteran stage magician famed for debunking false psychic phenomena (as Houdini himself did), who lived in the Las Vegas house once occupied by the late, great and amateur magician Orson Welles, famous for his Halloween eve Martian-landing radio broadcast. Then Temple discovers that the victim was also a mentor of her recently returned magician-lover, the Mystifying Max. So now the charismatic Max is meddling with Temple's scene of the crime as well as her emotional stability. But a surfeit of magicians (corporeal and less- than) troubles not a cagey black cat detective like Midnight Louie. Electra's psychic Birman cat Karma has been on his tail, playing Nero Wolfe to his reluctant Archie Godwin, since even before the October 31st slaying in mid-seance.

Readers will love watching the fur fly when bats gawk, skeletons walk, ghosts talk and Midnight Louie must battle another dimension to solve the murder and salvage his domestic harmony both human and feline. 

CAT IN A FLAMINGO FEDORA
Forge Books ISBN 0-812-56535-5 $6.99

 "a finale that'll run you within a whisker of your ninth life." --Kirkus on Cat on a Blue Monday

"Among the many appealing felines on the mystery scene, Midnight Louie stands out as the coolest cat of all. You don't have to be a cat lover to appreciate his savoir faire." --Romantic Times on Catnap

"everything you might want in a mystery: glitzy Las Vegas, real characters, suspense, a tough puzzle and. . . a finicky feline. On top of it all, a fine sense of humor and some illuminating social commentary."--The Prime Suspect on Pussyfoot

"Douglas writes her characters with realism and compassion. She addresses some sociological problems and a...feminine esteem issue not usually addressed...written in a casual style with great wit. I thoroughly enjoyed reading every page of this unusual novel. Midnight Louie's contributions...are insightful, humorous, and imaginative."--Affaire de Coeur

 "DOUGLAS TAKES ANTHROPOMORPHISM TO ELEGANT HEIGHTS AS MIDNIGHT LOUIE, A TOM WHO'S A PRIVATE DICK, HARRIES LAS VEGAS MALEFACTORS."--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

 "this clever tale operates on a multiplicity of levels, cloaking provocative and uniquely feminine insights inside a dandy puzzler that is pure catnip for mystery connoisseurs."--Romantic Times

 "A BRISK TAIL THAT EVEN MYSTERY READERS WHO DON'T LOVE CATS WILL RELISH."--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 

 

Write to me at cdouglas@catwriter.com

This web page (C) 1999/2000, Carole Nelson Douglas. Last updated 1/20/00