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Customer Reviews (8)

Love Midnight Louie
My order was received in a timely fashion and I loved the book.Cat in a Topaz Tango: A Midnight Louie Mystery (Midnight Louie Mysteries)

not a series I will continue
I enjoyed the first few Midnight Louie books but now I can't even get them started. The series is getting too the same to spend my limited book budget on. This is not the only series. James Patterson fell by the way side quite a few books ago.This is about the concept of a series going past when it should, not any certain author or genra. Sorry. The books may still be good, but not for me.I read CND when she wrote Science Fantasy and I go back far enough to remember reading many books that became firsts in what ended up as long series in several genras.

Putting the "miss" in Mystery
I have to admit that this is the first book by Carole Nelson Douglas that I've read, so it's possible I'm not quite "on board" with her characters, but "Cat in a Topaz Tango" was a bit of a bore from beginning to end.

Douglas apparently thinks her readers are about 6 years old, as she feels it necessary to repeat ad nauseum information regarding her main characters.For example, Temple Barr's fiance Matt is an "ex-priest," we are informed every time he's in a scene.Lieutenant Molina, we are told over and over, has been wounded in a previous book, and is still suffering.Molina and her ex and baby-daddy Rafi have a tense relationship, Douglas harps every time they are in a scene together. Yawn.

Douglas' book is sadly also the subject of poor research and editing, making for some cringe-worthy spelling and grammar mistakes, along with mistakes in history, medicine and science. (Did you know that a finger cut can soak a bath sheet with blood?) Some descriptions are just clunky: P. 264 (hardback ed.) "His head bristled with stiff projections like a metal crown." But on p. 265, same character: "A skull-clinging scarlet scarf covered his forehead above a wig of dangling black dreadlocks...."Huh?

The plot of this book centers around a dance fundraiser/competition a'la "Dancing With the Stars" and begins with a runaway teen with dreams.The teen's mom, a cop, notes that her daughter left with her cell phone, but is too busy being injured and worried to *call* her daughter or get one of the daughter's friends to call her.From there the action gets more and more implausible, and less entertaining. Temple, a 31 year old, goes undercover as a teen internet star. ('Cause, you know, short slender women just look younger!) A series of sabotages haunts the grown-up dancers, but in spite of some of them being "seriously" hurt, they all manage to perform.Even Douglas seems to feel that her denoument is weak; she spends a few extra pages trying to build up to it.And, finally, what is with the burlesque of a spy-story dribbled out in chapters througout the book?Do readers really care that much about the missing bad-boy love-of-her-life?I kept waiting for a connection to the main story, but it was more like Monty Python's "And Now for Something Completely Different" than a vehicle to move the plot along.

The only real mystery is why anyone would think that "Cat in a Topaz Tango" is a mystery.

Fun Read
Midnight Louie is always a treat.This book is one of the best in the series!

Cat in a Topaz Tango
Carole Nelson Douglas has done it again with the able assistance of Midnight Louie in Cat in a Topaz Tango.Her characters are always 3 dimensional and their personalities are never static but grow and mature with each book.She has the gift of making you care for and about them.I didn't read the book, I devoured it.Kudos to Ms. Douglas and a thousand thanks. ... Read more

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Delilah and her partner - tall, dark, handsome, and Hispanic ex-FBI guy Ric Montoya - are busy solving a "Romeo and Juliet" double-murder and she's got plenty more to deal with: vampires, werewolves, and tigers, oh my! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

Kindle Rocks
Book arrived in perfect condition (of course) and it got to me in record speed due to technology. I'd buy like this again.

(Number) Two out of Three Ain't Bad
Brimstone Kiss is the 2nd out of three in an ongoing series. I have enjoyed the author's "Irene Adler" mysteries, and decided to see what she did with paranormal/romance/suspense stories. Like the JD Robb "In Death" titles, the setting is a near future world slightly different than our own, with a female lead who is a 'wounded warrior': her work to set things right is influenced by her own disordered/violent/unhappy childhood. The character is also an old movie fan, and her world includes incarnations of silver screen characters, great wardrobe descriptions, and fast paced plotting. So far in the series I like #3 best, but that is also the one I read first!

A Yawner
I may take a little flack for this, but I'm going to admit to you that I'm writing a review without finishing the book.

I realize that some might think it's unfair, but I think that the fact that I was unable to finish the book speaks volumes in and of itself.I did read more than half of the book before I couldn't continue.

I was not familiar with the author prior to reading this and I understand that this is the second book in the series.Maybe if I'd read the first book, I might have enjoyed this more.

The first quarter of the book seems to be "information dump".It's a lot of catch up information so that those of us unfamiliar with the series will know what's happening in the author's world.

The main problem is that the information dump is tirelessly repetetive.I can only imagine that had I read the first book, I would feel like I was reading it again - and again, and again, and again.

In addition, the book is badly in need of editing.In one case, whole paragraphs are repeated with a few pages of each other.Characters know a bit of information on one page and then five pages later react in shock when told the same bit of information.In addition, the author seems to have too many interesting ideas (enough for many books) - and she puts them all in the first half of the book.It's overwhelming and confusing.

While the basic plot line seemed interesting, I read half the book without the author ever really getting into the plot.It was maddening and, honestly, boring.

Finally, when I realized I was half way through the book, didn't care about the characters, the plot was in the same place it started with on page one, and the repeated scenes and paragraphs were driving me nuts, I stopped reading.

Sorry, this one just wasn't for me!

Disappointing
I really enjoyed the first book, Dancing with Werewolves.The characters were interesting, the pacing moved well- it was a winner.I was delighted to pick up the second book in the series but found myself so bored with it that I finally tossed it, which is a highly unusual move for me.The same interior monologues are rehashed over and over.Deadly.There's too much deus ex machina in this book as well to resolve difficulties.You even get tired of the sex.This novel falls into the tired Anita Blake formula.Disappointing work from a good novelist.

Disappointing compared to Dancing With Werewolves
I'm not sure what changed so much from the first book, Dancing with Werewolves, to this one, but I didn't like Brimstone Kiss at all. It was blah and boring. It lacked the pizazz of the first book. As Brimstone Kiss jumps right in without covering any background, reading Dancing with Werewolves first is an absolute must. The only problem with that is that Dancing with Werewolves was a much better book - full of action, mystery, and an interesting new world. This time around, I felt that Delilah and Rick's "love" was not believable. There was lots of story-building and mystery, but very little action. Almost nothing was resolved from what was left open in the first book, so the plot seemed repetitious and mind-numbingly slow.

Nightwine is still Delilah's landlord. The enchanted cottage still has a mirror that shows the dead. Delilah can still travel through mirrors. Delilah and Rick are still investigating the identities of the skeleton couple from the park. Howard Hughes the vampire still has the hots for Delilah. Snow still wants to give Delilah the Brimstone Kiss. She's still looking for her CSI actress doppelganger, Lilith. The only new theme, hidden Egyptian stuff under Las Vegas, (seen it written better elsewhere) was dry and unimaginative. I felt like banging my head against a wall (but didn't). Even killer zombie mummies couldn't revive the book, since the "fight" scenes were too simple and quick. ... Read more

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Zombies and Witches and Vamps . . . Oh, My!

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas—at least that’s Delilah Street’s hope. With Sin City’s vampire and werewolf mobs wanting to cash in her chips once and for all, she’s retreating with her partner Ric Montoya and half-wolfhound Quicksilver to her Kansas birthplace. Unfortunately, when it comes to finding trouble, there’s no place like home. . . .

It doesn’t take long before Delilah realizes she’s not in Vegas anymore. Zombie cowboys and spectral cattle drives are kicking up dust, the local weather girls are total witches who forecast perfect storms, and some Hollywood fanatic is recasting zombies as the greatest stars of the silver screen. And speaking of silver, Delilah’s special affinity for the all-purpose monster-repellent leads her posse straight down a silver brick road—and into a notso- fun house of mirrors—putting her face-to-face with her dicey past and a mystery woman named Lilith, who’s a real dead ringer for Delilah. The key word being dead. ... Read more

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It was the revelation of the millennium: witches, werewolves, vampires and other supernaturals are real. Fast-forward 13 years: TV reporter Delilah Street used to cover the small-town bogeyman beat back in Kansas, but now, in high-octane Las Vegas - which is run by a werewolf mob - she finds herself holding back the gates of Hell itself. But at least she has a hot new guy and one big bad wolfhound to help her out... ... Read more

Customer Reviews (65)

Not CND's finest effort
After reading 21 Midnight Louie novels, I was ready for fast, fun, fabulous.Instead I got choppy incomplete sentences, sentences without meaning, obscure inside references without explanation.I read another review who suggested that this was farmed out to a ghost rider.That actually makes sense as nothing of CND is in this book.Things jump around, nothing is explained, hardly anything makes sense.
I won't continue this series.

I just.. do not get it.
I tried.. really really hard to get into this book and like this book. I really did. But.. it's so chaotic and it makes no sense. I only made it a couple of chapters in and couldn't finish reading it. First of all, this book is INSANELY choppy. After about 4-5 pages, we magically get another chapter. Period. There is no reason for a new chapter, no major break in the story or any real reasoning for it, it just feels as if the author wrote it in a series of short stories and then pasted them together and nobody bothered to fix the mistake. Sometimes the new chapter picks up IMMEDIATELY after the previous chapter as if they were on the same page, sometimes it just meanders off for a bit before picking back up where we left off.

The Second problem with this book is the premise. OK, interesting that supernatural creatures have started to out themselves. That's great, take it and run with it. Instead we get a mishmash of conflicting ideas. Supernaturals are OUT, but nobody believes in them EXCEPT our heroine for no apparent reason than she's "Vampire bait" which she reminds us every 50 seconds and then tells us all about the half-blood vampires out there which just seem to appear and be orphans for no real reason. I don't get this. How can people have accepted supernatural creatures and they be basically "outing themselves" as this huge thing for y2K and yet people still don't believe in them? Weird. Add to the fact that Delilah seems to have random dreams of alien abductions, which the writer constantly see-saws between them being what really happened and what MAY have happened.. well it's too strange and very weird.

OK, so all that's going on. Then for some odd reason, we start off the book in Kansas. I don't know why, nobody seems to know as this part of the book has nothing to do with anything except that apparently the writer wanted Delilah to be THE paranormal reporter who is amazing at her job and created it from the ground up (only to have it be stolen by the weather babe who happens to be an actual weather witch for really no reason). Delilah does very little at this job, she tries to have a date with a vampire even though she hates them and basically everything goes up in flames for really no reason. Her dog dies in a silly attempt to force us to feel sorry for this character we know nothing about, Delilah has a moment of seeing her body double magically appear on CSI Las Vegas (which for some reason they actually FILM in Las Vegas), Delilah loses her job as reporter extraordinaire to weather witch bimbo, and the bimbo causes Delilah's house to be taken away by a tornado (I think this was all suppose to be a really bad Wizard of Oz reference, it sure seems like it.. Toto the dog, tornado lifts house, evil witch and then transported to the new land of Vegas).

Now after all that, Delilah moves to Vegas where she starts to stake out the studio where CSI Vegas is taped to get at the writer to find out about magical body double when she meets MR. Handsome and the story goes even more into insanity from there. We get weird and constant barrage of comments and description of our heroines menstrual cycle. Why? No clue, but it was insanely off-putting and well GROSS. Then Mr. Handsome for no apparent reason, calls her back and forces her to look at dead bodies which Delilah happily trounces along for once again no apparent reason. Remember she just met this guy and he knows NOTHING about her and she knows nothing about him and yet he takes her to a crime scene. I dropped the book here. I just couldn't read any more.

This book has a good premise, but died from the writers lack of coherent thoughts, the constant mini-chapters which need to be cohesive, but aren't, bad writing, bad editing, and just it needs so much work. Books like this make me CRY because they got published and people who actually write amazing works struggle to even get published and this is published and marketed. It's just such a waste of money for the publishing companies and it makes all sci-fi/fantasy writers look bad and it's an insult to readers! We're smarter than this Juno Publishing. We really are!

Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah...
I picked this book up because it had a fun title and the premise sounded interesting - I was wrong. The first several chapters were world building and plot told as a main character monologue. Then it picked up for a bit, at least bringing in a few more (possibly interesting) characters. However, I never felt like the story came together cohesively and I never really cared much for the characters. Unfortunately, I had already gotten the sequel and I felt like I had to give it a shot. Sometimes a series starts off rocky, but ends up blowing everyone away... I didn't even make it past the halfway mark in the second book before giving up - it was a truly horrific mishmash as well...

2.5--rather indifferent to it
Okay let me be fair here--the first...9 chapters are like listening to someone monologue their life. Its a bit repetitive, somewhat awkward and stiff, but interesting enough. Around Chapter 10 however, when Delilah lands herself in Las Vegas (for various reasons), it starts getting more interesting. We have much more interaction with people other then herself, the blossoming of her paranormal skills and heck its Las Vegas. That's interesting for me.

Unfortunately the narrative remains scattered and the plot keeps swerving back and forth. A lot is left to obvious plot devices to keep the 'action' moving and I swear to god if she had mentioned that she was vampire bait one more time I would have ax'ed her right then and there. In the span of one chapter she says it no less then six times, all variations on 'I have pale skin, black hair and vampires find me simply irresistible'. Well bully for you, but don't keep slapping us in the face with it.

What sucks though is I really like this premise, Delilah isn't so bad so long as she keeps her vampire bait comments to herself and the world itself is intriguing (if a little aimless). I came into the Delilah Street novels because of the short story from the anthology Unusual Suspects in which Delilah solves a CineSim 'murder'. That was so much fun! I'm starting to wonder though if perhaps the stories are better left as short fiction. Less cluttering of the narrative, less repetitious information. I mean I was a interested in the back story between the characters from the SS, but Carole managed to get the feel of the character across in way less space.

I am still intrigued by the set up and world, and thankfully I have book 2 awaiting me, but I'll have to think about wanting to read Book 3 (due out in the fall) if Book 2 doesn't pick up things and give it a firmer course.

Mad Jumble
While I love paranormal romance, all I can say about this book is that I'm glad I finished it. Now I can mark this series off my list, way off! The book is a total jumble, plot lines crisscrossing and smashing into one another with NO resolutions at all. Save your money- buy something else, anything else. ... Read more

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But Delilah is a born winner who has never let a little danger throw off her game, and she's been learning fast since she came to Sin City. Her affinity for silver is making mirror-walking a real breeze, and being forced to accept the albino rock star sorcerer Snow's Brimstone Kiss has ramped up her powers to a startling new level. With the help of her trusty uber-wolfhound Quicksilver, not to mention the orange demon parking valet Manny, Delilah is determined to solve even more paranormal secrets, and hopefully save the few innocents left in town. But can Delilah win her high-stakes gamble for life and love against ancient gods and lethal supernatural odds? ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Love Kindle
Book arrived in perfect condition (of course) and it got to me in record speed due to technology. I'd buy like this again.

New adventures, new drink, new dangers...
Delilah Street is getting closer to the truth.I can tell because it seems people are still trying to kill her.If fact, I have the feeling the longer she sticks around in Vegas the more enemies will start crawling out of the woodwork.But she is also collecting some cool friends - who also want to use her.But hey, even bad friends are still friends.Right?
Of course we get a new cocktail, the Vampire Sunrise, more information about both the werewolf mob and the vampire mob, new characters, and even a tiny intro from Street herself, to help us keep up with the plot.
The ONLY problem is that this is not a stand alone novel.You have to read the other two before reading this novel.That's not really a problem, unless your lazy or don't like reading good books.More for the rest of us.

keep it up!
I have read all the delilah street books and love them all keep up the good work, I look forward to the next installment.

Loved This Series
I enjoyed this book enough to pursue the two sequels. They are imaginative, fun, sexy, and unpredictable. Although vampires and werewolves are featured, these characters are not the hackneyed stereotypes.

So-so.
This story is mediocre.Not as good as the first two.The first three chapters are a recap of the first two books, which is okay, but went on far too long.The conclusion of the story was abrute. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (9)

Temple never saw Amadeus?
Kitty the Cutter finally got what she deserved in the last book, which is where this book picks up.

Temple is hired to do PR for a furniture store, which is really a front for a drug smuggling operation.Bad things happen to nice people and Temple investigates the murder of a loved one for an old friend.Windows are shot out, Temple is threatened by a gay motorcycle gang, and there is another murder.

The romantic triangle is back and stronger.Max has other fish to fry and just sort of drops in a time or two in this book.That leaves Temple open to the attentions of Matt who is definitely interested in a relationship with her, and they come VERY close to acting on it.Max had better do more than just feel guilty about neglecting her.

The Fontana brothers are an absolute hoot and I hope we see more of them.We also find out a little more about them in this book.More of Ma Barker and her gang would be welcome, too.

There are some weaknesses.Like an earlier reviewer said, there are too many Jimmy Choo references and shoe talk in general.It is hard to tell who is speaking sometimes (a chronic fault in this series).The part about the pictures used as a signal is weak and not very subtle, even if the plot is built on it.Also, there is one glaring error that neither the writer nor the editor caught:Mozart's "murderous rival" was Salieri, not Solari (Solari was an architect).Antonio Salieri was Mozart's competitor of sorts, not a killer.Why change the name, unless it was an error?Temple put her Jimmy Choo'd foot in it

Overall, it was a good read and I look forward to the next one.

Hard to get into
I really had to work on this one to keep the story straight.I felt like I had ADD most of the time.It is not a bad story and parts of it I really like but it was just too much work.

Bogged Down
I couldn't get into the story as most of the sentences were gussied up with fancy prepositions and the gratuitous use of "Jimmy Choos." With 380 pages to go, I wrote my $$$ as a loss.

Harder to get into butworth it!
A tad bit slow in the beginning but so worth it when the hook finally sinks in.The characters are as colorful as always and I feel a thrill of delight at each of their witty snaps.I was ably caught up in the relationship troubles of our svelte lady Temple and the visit to Midnight Louie's mother was precious.

For those who haven't read any of the Midnight Louie books before, I'd say start at the beginning but by all means, continue on down to this one.For those who have... of course you must have this for your complete collection!

A new favorite in the amazing Midnight Louie series
I'm desperately addicted to these books.While I really enjoy the individual mysteries, and "Orange Twist" is a good 'un, I'm absolutely hooked on the overarcing storyline, laid out in what will, eventually, be 27 chapters (starting with "Catnap" and "Pussyfoot" before the alphabet starts with "Blue Monday").About the only thing I can't stand is that I'm going to have to wait about eleven years for, oh, say, "Cat in a Zebra Stripe"!

This installment moves the lives of our intrepid cast of characters forward without losing track of the intriguing mystery at hand, murder in a new furniture store.The ever-resiliant Miss Temple Barr tackles her PR duties while sleuthing out who the culprit(s) are with her usual finesse and style, and in the meantime, my favorite golden boy Matt finally makes his move while the nice-but-rarely-there Max is too busy, once again, saving the world from rogue magicians to get in the way.Pardon my lack of impartiality, but good.

Midnight Louie and possible-daughter Midnight Louise round up a cast of cat characters to help save the day and rope in the baddies and, of course, save Louie's beloved Miss Temple!Also nice to see some folks from the "old days" back, including Danny Dove and the flotilla of Fontana Brothers.I also very much appreciated the extremely sensitive and intelligent use of gay characters.Hooray for Ms. Douglas.

All in all, an extremely pleasant read and my favorite of the series since "Cat in an Indigo Mood."It's really tough to have to wait a year between chapters.One fun thing is to read the series rapidly and in order, which, with this volume, is up to 16 chapters and of course has taken over a decade to write, while only about two years of "book time" has passed, which means Las Vegas has swelled, changed, and grown at an awesome rapid pace.Topical events happen in staggeringly rapid session.But no matter.Even with the occasional inconsistency (often a sudden change of hotel or stumble over detail, and just a few little things anyone familiar with Vegas might cringe at), I just can't wait for the next installment.
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Customer Reviews (7)

Another Irene Adler page-turner
This eighth book in the series begins where book seven left off - in New York City in the late summer of 1889.Irene and the faithfull Penelope are on a mission to discover just who Irene's mother really was.There are a lot of other familiar people in New York with them - Nelly Bly, Quentin Stanhope, and of course Sherlock Holmes.As these two intrepid women are trying to unearth some historical data that will aid in identifying Irene's mother, they stumble upon a dangerous plot that puts both their lives at risk.With the help of the other people mentioned above, they manage to solve the case and find a lost treasure to boot.These books are extremely well-written, and there is a nice mix of real-live people in them just to keep them interesting.I like Ms. Douglas' take on true hisorical happenings and real historical people.

Enjoyed this latest install of the Irene Adler series
Again Ms. Douglas has entertained me with this period series of the Opera Diva Irene Adler and her ever present sidekick Nell. Although the only think tiring is the constant "primness and prudishness" of Nell. I think she could evolve a bit more as the novels have unfolded.Maybe if there is another in the series, she will become less introverted in her thinking.
Spider Dance takes up where Irene's quest in Femme Fatale began, searching for her roots. Sherlock Holmes, Nelly Bly and Of course Quentin Stanhope all plays pars in this on going mystery.
The characters remain true to their century and Ms. Douglas has done her research yet again on the authenticity brought to the early period of NYC.

The Long Winded Mystery
When I first picked up this Sherlock and Irene mystery I flipped to the back and realized the novel was over 450 pages.Unfortunately the last 50 to 75 pages were unneccessary.The mystery was already sustantially solved and I kept waiting for another surprise to occur, but it never did.On top of this, as a Sherlock Holmes reader, I like to be able to try to solve the mystery before the ending.In this book it was virtually impossible because the crimes are being commited by charactersbarely revealed during the story.It is as though the author provided a great cast of possibilities and then pull the impossible out of a hat.
The best part of the book was the intertwined cast of characters thrust into a historical setting.The plot circulated from one cast member to another, both past and present - each one telling a part of the story from their perspective.
Is it worth the read? Yes.Could the mystery have a better and shorter conclusion? Definitely.

Well as usual.
Ms. Douglas as usual writes a readable well paced though a bit too long novel.Her character are well drawn and interesting.

Rereadable Books Well Worth The Price
I've just discovered this Irene Adler/Holmes series and I've read 5 of the 8 books as of 2005, and can hardly wait to read more.

Carole Nelson Douglas translates the prose style of Arthur Conan Doyle's day into the modern era with as much elegance as found in the BBC productions of Sherlock Holmes starring Jeremy Brett. I hear Jeremy Brett in every word of Holmes dialogue in these novels.

As the fans of a television show will detail events going on offstage during an episode, Douglas shows us details of Holmes' investigations that would not have seemed pertinent to Conan Doyle as he wrote -- but he might well have been thinking of them. Douglas twangs every Holmsian heartstring with her deft expansion of the Doyle tales.

There is one difference though. Douglas shows us a 21st Century woman in Irene Adler, a woman truly with A Soul of Steel, (as the novel Irene At Large will be retitled with its December 2005 release).This is a woman Doyle could never have written and his readers probably would not have accepted.

But to us, Adler's biography makes her attitude plausible.We can easily believe she bested Sherlock Holmes more than once.

Even if you've never read any Sherlock Holmes -- read the Irene Adler novels.

Spider Dance is very special though.It has come out at the same time that Laurie R. King's new Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes novel Locked Rooms has appeared.

The two novels both focus on an investigation into a dark childhood hidden behind trauma induced blocks.Both are written with precision insight into human psychology.There is much to learn from each of these novels alone, but read in tandem they can be incredibly illuminating.

Mary Russell is searching for the traumatic events of her childhood in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake, and Irene Adler is investigating her lost childhood memories also starting in California, but during the Gold Rush.

There all similarity ceases, but both novels are 5 star, top notch entries into the Holmes apocrypha.

Here is the list of titles to date for the Irene Adler/Holmes series:
Good Night, Mr. Holmes; The Adventuress; A Soul of Steel which will be a re-titling of Irene At Large due out in December 2005. Then comes Another Scandal in Bohemia; Chapel Noir and its direct sequel, Castle Rouge, then Femme Fatale and the direct sequel Spider Dance.

These are all thick books, about 400 pages each with reasonable size print -- lots of words for the money and all of them definitely worth the price.
... Read more

Product Description
Midnight Louie is aprowl again--and the game is definitely afoot when petite public relations freelancer Temple Barr finds herself at a striptease convention, up to her spike heels in musclebound males, siliconed females...and murder. As Temple tracks the killer, Midnight Louie pursues his own investigation. Now that fading film star Savannah Ashleigh and the Divine Yvette, her purebred Persian (and Louie's platinum-haired lost love) are among the endangered, the tomcat sleuth will leave no rhinestone unturned to find the murderer...
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Customer Reviews (4)

Love this 19 pound black tomcat!!!
I first read this in 1995 after a black male cat I had that weighed 19 poundslost the fight to Feline Leukemia. The way Ms Douglas described Midnight Louie and all his antics reminded me of my cat that was always getting into mischief. This book is a great mystery for cat lovers and mystery lovers. Since reading this book I have bought the whole collection of Midnight Louie and have thoroughly enjoyed every book.

Pussyfoot
Midnight Louie Does it again!!! He's one cool cat that has the street smarts to solve the case.

Pussycat antics
Midnight Louie, the suave, sophisticated cat sleuth, has done it again!He and his family and friends come to life in a very unique way.As he "pussyfoots" through the pages, he becomes a part of "the family."As a devoted fan of animal detective mysteries, it is easy to see why this one rates high on the list.And the way the human and animal stories proceed together is excellently done.Keep 'em coming!

Midnight Louie's foray in the world of striptease.
*Pussyfoot* draws the reader deeper into Midnight Louie's and Temple's slice of Las Vegas.You get to meet Crawford Buchanan, a rival PR man, and sleazy 50s throwback who completely missed the Women's Liberation movement.After suffering a heart attack, Crawford talks Temple into covering astripper convention, the climax of which is a competition. Unfortunately,strippers start to show up dead, strangled with items from their costumes.Temple also encounters a striptease protestor who joins in the adventure,andlearns some of the dancers' stories. As a special added attraction,the reader meets the Divine Yvette, Midnight Louie's petite, silver coatedlady love. Temple's natural nosiness puts her face-to-face with thekiller. Carole Nelson Douglas always includes some little device to explainthe title...where will it be this time? ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (13)

Not quite up to par
I'm a huge fan of Carole Nelson Douglas and Midnight Louie (& Co!) but this one rather fell flat.The storyline was very contrived and had a bit too much of an air of unreality.Temple and Louie have been in some strange situations before, but the situations have all been believeable, or at least Las-Vegas-style-believeable.This one was just a bit too far-fetched, even for Las Vegas.The premise was excellent, and the characters were their usual zany selves, but it just didn't have the 'spark' that Ms. Douglas usually imparts in her writings.I'm happy this sits on my shelf, and have no regrets, but neither can I give it 5 stars.Fortunately, this appears to have just been a 'blip', and the next book in the series (Cat in a Topaz Tango) regained the author's fine feline touch.I doubt if this would much bother those who are reading the life history of Midnight Louie in order from A-to-Z, though!

She Certainly Loves Cats
"Cat in a Sapphire Slipper," is, perhaps, 20th in the Midnight Louie series of cat detection tales by Carole Nelson Douglas.So, evidently, a successful series with many fans.It finds Midnight Louie in Las Vegas, with his human, PR gal Temple Barr.Her aunt, former actress and romance writer Kit Carlson is planning to marry Aldo Fontana, former mobster with eight younger brothers who've all had a hand in running the city.But Aldo's bachelor party goes wrong: the bachelor brothers are kidnapped by their want-to-get-married themselves angry and jealous fiancées, and taken to a legalized prostitution ranch, apparently locally called a chicken ranch, on the outskirts of town.For a while, all is fun and games; then one of the prostitutes is found murdered, and Temple Barr and Midnight Louie must find the killer and save what remains of the good names of the Fontana boys.

Well, it isn't much of a mystery; bloodless, to be sure, and on the thin and flat side.Of course, I've noticed several series that present a mixture of cats and detection, though I don't think I've ever read any of those books.And I must say,although I absolutely love cats, have had an adopted pair - currently Divo and Fiona --for more years than most people on this earth have been alive,I don't really care for at least this book, in which a cat supposedly does most of the detection, and also narrates.Particularly since the cat narrates in a voice obviously modeled on the dialog invented by Damon Runyon (1880-1946) who wrote many short stories and sketches - some would be used to create the play "Guys and Dolls," and the movie based on it(Guys and Dolls).At any rate, Runyon was writing about Prohibition Broadway characters, horse players, gamblers, chorus girls, petty criminals, the demi-monde.The language he developed is defined as in a "distinctive vernacular style: a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions."If Douglas's cat must talk and narrate, can't she devise her own language for him?

Furthermore, I felt the author trivialized those women working as prostitutes at the ranch; and, to add insult to injury, she then turned around and began calling them courtesans.Now, historically courtesans have quite a different reputation: they aren't prostitutes.They tend to be beautiful and talented women, capable of singing or throwing a great party; they create social circles, and stay with lovers a long time -- perhaps a lifetime. Some great and mighty women have begun their careers as courtesans.However, Douglas loves cats; the book is dedicated to Alley Cat Allies and Feral Friends, and mentions the new program of Trap, Neuter and Release that aims to help feral felines, and I can't argue with that.I note the author also does a series of Irene Adler adventures, Irene Adler being the only woman who ever bested Sherlock Holmes in a game of wits.Perhaps I'd get on better with those, but I'm afraid the Adler books might be narrated by Irene's budgerigar.

Book Great.Print Terrible
This book is as fun and great a read as all the "Midnight Louie" books are.However, the print in the book is so light it is very difficult to read.I returned it and hope to find a copy of the book with readable print.

Sapphire Slipper
Midnight Louie is back in action with "roommate" Temple Barr. They are hard at work solving a murder. If you enjoyed the previous stories in this series you will enjoy this one as well.

Couldn't Wait to Put it Down-Couldn't Bear to Pick it Up!
My girlfriend gave me the book. She challenged me to find any thing wrong with the tome. I read. I pointed there was no fact checking - Capitalization would suddenly appear in the middle of a sentence - Similes were tortured. Most unfortunate!!

She (gf) found something more fundamentally wrong. I think she questioned whether it was writing at all.

I will dispel those with the darker thoughts.

I like cats and they like me. Those that know me just line up and I dutifully accede to each cat's thing ... Read more

Product Description
Cat in a Neon Nightmare is the fifteenth Midnight Louie mystery, and this tough-talking tomcat is as feisty as ever, raising hell (sometimes literally) in Las Vegas, America's Sin Capital.

The lavish hotels and the sham of wholesome fun may soothe the tourists, but sex and greed still fuel this town, and bad guys still abound. And Midnight Louie, the feline Sam Spade has his paws full keeping those he loves safe
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This time Midnight Louie treads the lurid side of mystery's mean streets when a call girl named Vassar is found lying dead on the neon ceiling above a Las Vegas casino. Suicide or homicide? If straight-arrow radio shrink Matt Devine, the man most likely to have been Vassar's unlikely last client, is charged for Vassar's murder, everyone Louie knows is an accessory to the crime . . . except for his ever-loving roommate, PR whiz Temple Barr, who has been kept in the dark by both friends and enemies.

To save Matt's future, Temple will have to crack the cover-up with the unsuspected help of Midnight Inc. Investigations, now including a junior partner: Louie's maybe-daughter, Midnight Louise. Meanwhile, a hot new club in town, Neon Nightmare, has links to the mysterious Synth, a sinister association of magicians that may lie behind the string of unsolved deaths that have haunted Louie Company for months.

And with the psychotic stalker, Kitty the Cutter, still prowling, death is definitely in the cards for someone Temple knows very well, and not even Louie may be able to stop it.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Great Read
One of a series of great books featuring a cat sleuth.Lots of fun to read.

Cat in a Neon Nightmare
This is an incredible series of mystery books if you like mysteries, cats, and Las Vegas!

Midnight Louie does it again!
He is one cool cat!Midnight Louie would be welcome in my home anyday along with his dear Mum, Ma Barker and sister, Midnight Louise, oh and we can't forget his sweet papa (now retired).A truly delightful read which keeps you looking for the next book in this great series.

An unexpected emotional ride
I discovered the Midnight Louie books over 2 years ago and have ravenosly read them all.Cat in a Neon Nightmare is full of unexpected surprises.A major chapter unexpectedly closes here and through Mrs. Nelson Douglas' artistry we are made to feel the void opened by this event as closely as those it affects in the book.Almost every character this time around is exposed to a truth or happenstance that disappoints them/shocks them at a deep soul biting level and we feel it right with them. Everything is not black and white, not all things happen due to premeditation--like real life--somethings just do.A wonderful continuation of the Midnight Louie adventures and by the emotions it evokes, a wonderful example of what a writer can make their readers feel when they have a grasp of the craft as well as Carole Nelson Douglas obviously does.Huzzah!

If you haven't read other books in the series...
Many of the reviewers here have read many, or all, of the books in this series. I haven't. This is the first "Midnight Louie" book I've read.

I won't be reading any more of this series, though I might try the author's Adler series.

The author spends a lot of time trying to bring new readers up to speed. Unfortunately, the attempts to explain the various twists and turns in past books add little by way of clarity, and serve to distract the reader (at least this reader) from the story at hand.

While this mystery theoretically addresses the violent death of a woman, the human characters invest relatively little time, energy, or thought in trying to solve that mystery. The feline characters are considerably more interested in finding out what happened.

The investigation of this death is lost amidst a tangle of sub-plots. Characters appear, initiate discussions of Important Topics (not related to the woman's death), and vanish.

Imagine someone going to the roof of a building with a bushel basket of tennis balls. Imagine that person upending the basket so that the balls fall to the sidewalk below, bouncing in every direction. Imagine the person thendescribing where the various balls bounced to, and where some of the balls came to rest. That's the sense I had with this book -- the author's attention followed this bouncing ball, then dropped that one to check out another bouncing ball, and then on to another, then back to the first from another perspective. The investigation of the character's death was just one bouncing ball, often overlooked.

For me as one reader, this book was completely unsatisfactory as a mystery.

Readers who like stories with a lot of divergence would probably like this book better than readers like me, who like a sense of convergence and even closure of the story at hand.

Readers who enjoy characters who are talking cats, or characters who are humans with a penchant for feeling many emotions and then expressing their views about how they feel to other human characters, will undoubtedly like this book better than I did. ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (12)

Cat in a Red Hot Rage
Great book!I love this author and have read all her books, waiting not so patiently for the next one to come out.

Louie's the Best
As usual, Midnight Louie is the best...a real cat's meow.Carole Nelson Douglas has the right feel for cat characterization...whether Louie, Louise, Karma or Ma.Somehow they seem less anthropomorphic than you'd expect. The big leopards invariably come off a little dense...and so do the Fontana brothers...but then all the big guys seem to be of the same mold.

However I do get annoyed with Temple...just how unaware of mid-life can a 30 year old be?And Matt is like no priest or ex-priest...well, that I've known.Then there's Max...personally I think, for all the improbability of his "profession", his character seems the most human.

Still...all in all...the Midnight Louie mysteries are like potato chips: you can't devour just one.I look forward to each new "episode", wondering how all the twists and turns will merge in the end.Actually 26 letters in the alphabet aren't enough.

Love Louie, not so hot about Temple, Max or Matt
I love Louie, and his kit, Louise.However, the human characters in these stories are so unreal, that I find myself skipping through the book so I can read Louie's monologs.Somehow the fun fantasy that comes through in, for example, Rita Mae Brown's books just doesn't work here, at least not for me.This one is about the same as all the others... The books are about 90% human chapters, and 10% cats...They'd be much improved by reversing the percentage.

Always fun.


If you've enjoyed the previous books in the series, this will be fun reading too.Just don't expect many final wrap-ups.

cat lover loves Midnight Louie
I had to check since I saw this was the 19th?It doesn't seem that long ago!But she keep the series fresh.I really enjoy Nelson's books, even her new one Dancing with Werewolves.

Long Live Midnight Louie!As a cat love (I have five) I really enjoy the books with cats in them. ... Read more

Product Description
Irene Adler is the only woman ever to have outwitted Sherlock Holmes in A Scandal in Bohemia; she is as much at home with a spyglass and revolver than with haute couture and gala balls.Her adventures are the stuff of legend, for she has faced down sinister spies, thwarted plots against nations, and led an unlikely group, including the bachelor of Baker Street and his faithful cohort Watson, through the cellars and catacombs of 1889 Paris to capture Jack the Ripper. But disaster scattered those allies and the Ripper has escaped...

With the help of an unreliable prostitute named Pink, and theatrical manager Bram Stoker, who would later pen Dracula, Irene follows the clues that lead back to Bohemia, and on to new and bloodier atrocities.And when pursuers and prey reunite at a remote castle in Transylvania, the Ripper is cornered and fully unveiled at last...
Amazon.com Review
Blend Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes with Dracula lore, toss in a copious complement of czarist Russian history, and the result is Carole Nelson Douglas's Castle Rouge, her grisly but gripping sequel to 2001's Chapel Noir.

Disaster has struck opera diva-turned-detective Irene Adler Norton. The American adventuress who bested Holmes and thereby won his admiration (in "A Scandal in Bohemia") thought she'd cornered the elusive Ripper on the grounds of the 1889 world's fair in Paris, but instead, he fled to Eastern Europe after kidnapping her friend and biographer, Penelope "Nell" Huxleigh. Now, while Irene--assisted by theatrical manager Bram Stoker, daredevil Yankee reporter Nellie "Pink" Bly, and British spy Quentin Stanhope--sets out for Prague, hoping to rescue Nell, and as Holmes and Dr. John Watson revisit Saucy Jack's earlier homicidal activities in London, Nell finds herself imprisoned, together with Irene's barrister husband, in a crumbling Transylvanian castle, under the malevolent scrutiny of a Russian woman agent and a brutish lust-murderer endowed with hypnotic powers.

Douglas builds considerable intrigue on her way to a surprising solution to the Ripper's identity. Yet it's unfortunate that this sixth Irene Adler yarn focuses more on the prudish Nell and her discomforts as a hostage (no proper corsets--how shocking!) than on its more intrepid chief protagonist, or even on Pink, whose capacity for audacious exploits was better realized in Chapel Noir. Regrettable, too, is the plot's shift from Paris to the eldritch extremes of Bohemia. Stoker points out that "the region reeks with bizarre legend and folktales," yet Castle Rouge's action takes place well apart from the Gypsy villages that might have provided cultural color. --J. Kingston Pierce ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

bad book
one of the most boring books ever.she needs to take some lessons from laurie r king on how to write sherlock holmes

4.5 stars
This is the second half of the story begun in Chapel Noir, and I liked it both more and less than part one.

Of necessity, this contains some details that are mild spoilers for Chapel Noir, so if you're a spoiler-purist, read no further. And while you're at it, read about Chapel Noir so I don't have to repeat the series background.


Castle Rouge begins with both Nell and Godfrey both missing, and Irene joining forces with a reluctant Pink to find them and capture Jack the Ripper, who's apparently resurfaced in Paris. Reports of the renewed appearance of the Golem (from Another Scandal in Bohemia) in Prague, where Godfrey was last seen, make them think he's been there as well.

By this second volume, I was used to, and even enjoyed, the chapters from Pink's POV. She's just as unreliable a narrator as Nell, but her biases are different, and her voice is hers alone. This book also has a fourth first-person narrator in Dr. Watson, who's back in London with Sherlock Holmes, investigating Jack the Ripper from that direction. I'm still not convinced, however, that the chapters from the Yellow Journal POV were necessary. Even though I was more used to the POV switches and the different voices in this second book, there were just too many of them. And I rarely like getting an anonymous villain's POV. I'm not sure why. I'll have to think about that.

Much time was spent on the patterns the attacks made on the maps of London, Paris, and Prague--so much so that I got bored with it. Although I enjoy the mental puzzle aspect of a physical pattern to the killings, it didn't make sense. It's explained later, but the explanation raised other slight objections, and I had trouble buying the ultimate villain's motive.

However, the characters were, as always, stellar, the atmosphere intense, and the suspense dramatic. I won't be forgetting about this series again.

Continuing to track Jack the Ripper
"Castle Rouge" is the second half of a very, very long novel that begins in "Chapel Noir." You can't read these separately. Just the same, if you're an Irene Adler fan, or are interested in who might really be Jack the Ripper, this two-book novel is one you don't want to miss. See review of "Chapel Noir."

Not for the faint of heart!
This heartstopping end to the two book story about Jack the Ripper written by Ms. Douglas has heart-stopping action from the beginning to the end.The book continues the story of Irene Adler's search for her missing husband and her missing companion.The book flips back and forth from Irene and her group and to Nell and Godfrey who are being held captive in a decaying castle in Transylvania.This is a much darker story than Chapel Noir, but the plot is gripping, and as always, Ms. Douglas' period detail is wonderful.I know that I couldn't put the book down.There's not much mystery in this one though, but the theories that are put forth as to the identity of Jack the Ripper are intriguing.This is a wonderful series and Irene Adler is a great character.

So glad to have found Carole Nelson Douglas
I picked this book up at the library one day while I was passing time waiting on my children.The word Castle caught my eye, and the Jack the Ripper plot idea intrigued me.Always searching for(and all too rarely finding) a good writer, I was immediately delighted with the quality of Ms. Douglas' writing.In classic Dickensian style she weilds words in unexpected ways as to be sometimes powerful, sometimes subtle, sometimes shocking, but never ordinary.

The story and characters are in themselves intriguing.By assembling in one story Jack the Ripper, Bram Stoker (author of Dracula) Sherlock Holmes, Nelly Bly, the Prince of Wales, Baron de Rothschild along with other sordid characters, both fictional and non, you have the soup into which Ms. Douglas tosses the reader to stew.We watch as Irene Adler solves both the Jack the Ripper case once and for all, and reveals the source of Bram Stroker's inspiration.Along the way we get to explore the seedy underbelly of late 19th century London, Paris, Prague and Transalvania.It's a scandolusly delicious romp!

If you like historical fiction or mystery, and value skillful writing, I commend you to Ms. Douglas. ... Read more

Product Description
When a beautiful, emaciated woman is found on a remote cliff, completely naked and apparently lacking all memory of who she is, psychoanalyst Kevin Blake is assigned to the case and becomes obsessed with unlocking her memory. Reprint. AB. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Dated and Not Very Realistic
Spoiler

The beginning was intriguing, the standard setup with an amnesia character.This character starts the scene by killing a cop through telekinesis though it was in a wierd misunderstood self defense kinda way.Fine, no problem.That sets up the tension/discovery angle.The character wakes up in a psychiatric hospital research facility.

So here is where i literally threw the book across the room.The whole point of stories like this is the anticipation of when the modern day doctors encounter the bizarre.In this case, the fact that their patient has telekinetic powers.

About 1/4 of the way through the book, this happens.One of the doctors who is funded by the military discovers that the character does in fact have telekinetic powers.She has documented several experiments.

The principle doctor/shrink finds out about it, sees a demonstration and guess what he does?

He confiscates her results and demands that the other doctor stop doing tests.

So let me get this straight.You are a doctor/researcher, and you stumble onto the holy grail of psychiatry-- a patient with ESP, and your first instinct is to cover it up?And to actually be upset?

So unrealistic.

It would be like an engineer discovering a real life Transformer, and then not finding it interesting.

So, I threw the book across the room and doubt i'll ever finish reading it.

If I do, I'll come back and give you an update.

17 years after...
I actually read this book in the late 1980's and bought another copy to re-read in 2003!Definitely a "girlie" SF book.I also highly recommend Carole Nelson Douglas Sword and Circlet series (starting with the "real" first book Six of Swords).

Couldn't put it down
Wonderful story.I picked this up last night and couldn't put it down...it was written in 1985 - before the breakup of the Soviet Union.. in some ways, this dates the story and the actions of the CIA and the Probe researchers.It is easy enough to overlook though and does not distract from the main focus of the story - the struggle to unlock the mystery of one women's mind.Well worth the read.

An enchanting, enagaging mix of mystery, romance and sf
Carole Nelson Douglas mixes genres masterfully in Probe.There is romance, mystery and science fiction in this story of a beautiful young woman lost to herself. Jane (Jane Doe) is both riveting and enraging as acharacter.She is a savant, a human computer and a child. The end result,romance between herself and the doctor assigned to her case, is broughtabout slowly as he and Jane realize the truth about her past ... Read more

Product Description

Customer Reviews (21)

A Rousing Start to a Great Series!
In a nutshell, if you like mysteries set in Victorian England, with lots of spot-on period details and engaging/endearing characters, then this book is for you. And by the way, Victorian England in this instance does not equal boring and stuffy.

Before I get on with the review, no, this is not a horror, science fiction or fantasy novel, nor was it penned by an author just starting out, so yes, I freely broke out of my own set of reviewing parameters.

Carole Nelson Douglas is an accomplished author, with 61 books to her credit, amongst them her successful Midnight Louie mystery series, and this series, the Irene Adler mysteries.
I wanted to shine the spotlight on Douglas's Irene novels since we just saw the character of Irene Adler brought to life in the recent film, Sherlock Holmes.
Granted, Douglas's Irene was not the precise inspiration for the theatrical Irene; however, her books bring the reader a very likable and fascinating character and deserve to be read.

Irene Adler is "the woman" to Sherlock Holmes and the only woman to ever outwit him.
In Good Night Mr. Holmes, we meet Penelope Huxleigh, who is Irene's own Dr. Watson, and it is through her eyes we are told the tale.
Penelope and Irene meet on the streets of London after Penelope has been dismissed from her job at a fabric purveyor, homeless and penniless. Irene deftly saves Penelope from being accosted by a street urchin and the two end up taking a meal together, leading to Irene revealing her powers of observation concerning Penelope's circumstances. Rather taken aback, Penelope nonetheless accepts Irene's offer of lodging for the night and thus their friendship starts.

As the story progresses, we are introduced to Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Charles Tiffany & Anton Dvorak, which lend the tale a true-to-life air.
Missing jewels, a thought-to-be-lost personal possession and a widow's inheritance are a few of the mysteries Irene must solve, with Sherlock Holmes himself, haunting the background.
However, it is Irene's involvement with the Prince soon-to-be King of Bohemia that takes up the second half of the book and lays the groundwork for an interesting twist at the end.

Irene is clever, advanced in her way of thinking and acting for woman of her time, which makes reading this so enjoyable.

Good Night Mr. Holmes is a rousing start to an 8 book series and I intend to review the rest of the Irene books, so watch this space!

For more information on Carole Nelson Douglas, please visit:
[...]

Very disappointing
Let me start by admitting that I enjoy Sherlock Holmes, but I am not a Holmesian. I think the actual canon is pretty good, occasionally great, and that Doyle showed rather too plainly his growing dissatisfaction with the series. What Doyle DID do right was create an unforgettable character, an icon, one that writers today would KILL for. Holmes is a character that has survived numerous movie and TV shows, including a cartoon, and inspired literally hundreds of writers to try their hand at a new spin on the old stories. (One of my favorites from last year was Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space for the amazing creativity it contained.)

I loved the IDEA for this book. Take The Woman, Irene Adler from "A Scandal in Bohemia," the one female Holmes seemed to consider a worthy adversary, and tell her story. The trouble is that the story the writer tells is just not up to the idea. Irene is unconventional, brave, intelligent, and resourceful. So why is she wasted in this romantic meandering that only occasionally involves any real mystery and treats Holmes as a bit player? The idea seemed to be to present Irene as a female counterpart to Holmes. To that end, she has a mysterious past, like his, that same ability to 'deduce' from the clues at hand, an urge to solve mysteries, and a stuffy, conventional sidekick. (I may be doing Watson a disservice here. Penelope Huxleigh is amazingly insipid and uninteresting. At least Watson had something of a life.)

I kept at it, waiting for the fatal meeting between the two, but wound up embroiled in Bohemia, where Irene is protecting her virtue by declining an offer to be the new king's mistress. Come on. Not buying it. So I gave up and never got to see what happened when Adler and Holmes finally met.

What really bugs me is that this series means that someone else can't use the same great idea - the story of Irene Adler - and turn it into something really WORTH reading. Don't bother.

A female Sherlock Holmes?
Irene Adler shows up in the corpus of Sherlock Holmes' works, in "A Scandal in Bohemia." This book represents that story in a larger context--from the point of view of a close acquaintance of Adler's. And the effect is altogether delightful!

The story is overwritten in its style as is Doyle's body of work--but that is a good thing in this case, as it creates a parallelism between the Holmes works and this book about Adler. In the book the Bohemian scandal is only a small part of a much larger story. "Good Night, Mr. Holmes" is a work from the point of view of Penelope ("Nell") Huxleigh. The story is told from her diaries and writings, relating her experiences over time with Adler.

First, this is a character study. Irene Adler comes across as a very independent woman (the work starts when she is 22), who does not yield to societal norms. She is, in short, her own person. Her vocation is opera; her avocation is investigation. She comes from a modest background, has to hustle for every penny she can earn at the outset. She is clever, wearing costumes (including dressing as a man) to gain information in her investigations. She has a similar deductive skill to Holmes' himself.

Second, there is a mystery--the fate of the diamonds of Marie Antoinette. An American mogul, Tiffany, gives her a retainer to find it (covering his bets, he had also provided Holmes with a retainer!). The novel covers a period of about eight years, and the diamonds remain elusive to Adler over that period of time, although she has clues to work with (she beat Holmes to the clues by moments).

Third, it is a story of the time. We meet James Whistler, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, and so on. We get a sense of the times.

Fourth, there is the story of her getting caught in a trap by the Prince (later King) of Bohemia. She solves the murder of the old king, but is caught in a royal trap threatening her future and her honor. Her escape is nicely done.

Finally, it is a romance, as she at first disdains and later collaborates with Godfrey Norton in her pursuit of escape from Bohemia and acquisition of the diamonds.

How these threads come together is done well. And her tweaking of Holmes adds a nice twist to the closing of this novel. I am intrigued enough that I suspect that I will read at least one more of these novels featuring Irene Adler.

Charming not-quite-alternate Sherlock Holmes tale spinning
I'm far from a Sherlock Holmes scholar, but I fell headlong into Laurie King's Mary Russell series, in which King posits a middle-aged Holmes doing his sleuthing with a brilliant young woman. I finished every book in King's repertoire, and am wishing that she'd hurry up with the next one, please. However, during a book signing, Laurie King discussed *other* fictional treatments of Holmes, and this one in particular: A Scandal in Bohemia, told from the viewpoint of "The Woman," Irene Adler -- the only person to (in Doyle's universe) beat Holmes at his own game. How could I resist?

"Good Night, Mr. Holmes" is a marvelous standalone story, and I think it easily could be read by someone who never read the original Sherlock Holmes short story or whose memory of it is somewhat vague. (But really, you'll want to (re-)read "A Scandal in Bohemia" afterward, just for comparison; I did.) Irene Adler is a beautiful and brilliant American woman who is serious about her opera career and bound-and-determined to succeed independently -- quite a challenge for a woman in Victorian England. Her "Dr Watson" is Penelope Huxleigh, a prissy parson's daughter who chronicles Irene's (and her own) adventures, from their interactions with famous people of the era (such as Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker) to Adler's own detective sleuthing to the background tale in which we see the Holmes short story from another's eyes: Adler's relationship with the King of Bohemia. It works solo; it's also impressive in a "weave the events into the Doyle story" way.

This is great rainy-afternoon, popcorn-munching fiction, and I highly recommend it even if you never got into the Sherlock Holmes canon.

It is, however, somewhat different in mood from the Laurie King novels. This Irene Adler story is primarily a light adventure story, with intellectual swashbuckling and a few giggly moments. The Mary Russell novels are much... well, I don't want to say *darker*, but King is relentless about putting her heroine in painful situations and then seeing what ELSE she can do to her character. If you like one series, I think you'll like the other. They're both great, in different ways.

Book Delivery
I was very pleased with the promptness with which my book arrived, and with the excellent condition of both the packaging and the book itself. ... Read more

Product Description
"Catnap features 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 kneel nose to nose over a dead body at the American Booksellers Association convention in Las Vegas, 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 purr fect book for you.Once again, Ms. Douglas is on a roll."--Mostly Murder ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Midnight Louie
The author just has one liners all the way through the book. Hard to follow the story with all her adjectives and adverbs. Nothing like The Cat Who.

The name's Louie, Midnight Louie
This is the first volume of the Midnight Louie series that features that a crime solving tom cat who talks like he is the reincarnation of Sam Spade and the 'doll' who helps him, Temple Barr a petite public relations free lancer.The pair prowl the mean streets of Las Vegas as the puzzle out answers to crimes that stump the local police.

CATNAP introduces the pair both to the readers and to each other as Louie tries to get Temple to discover the murdered body of a rather shady book publisher who had the bad taste to die in the midst of one of Temple's biggest projects.Disaster seems to be looming for Temple's fledgling PR career when shortly after the dead human is discovered the catnapping of a pair of famous 'spokescats' is also found.Louie is soon hot on the trail of the culprits, a trail that leads him all too close to using up his ninth life.

As is common with the introductory volume of a series much time is spent supplying background material, even at the expense of the mystery aspect.CATNAP follows this pattern, as the author devotes most of her attention to setting the scene for subsequent novels.Temple Barr and her human companions are all introduced and supplied with interesting backstories.Louie is described at length, many of his cohorts and even his previous humans are also introduced.This does not leave lots of time for the mystery aspect of the story, but in true cozy fashion it is not really the point anyway.This series will appeal to those who are fans of series cozy mysteries, particularly those involving cats - such as the CAT WHO series.

This is where it all began
Both the adventures if Midnight Louie and my addiction to said cat and his "roommate", the petite but very professional PR specialist, Temple Barr. Little does she (or the new reader) know that when Temple sets off in her trademark high heel shoes after a black cat on the loose at the American Booksellers Association convention in Las Vegas that this is the beginning of not just a mystery and murder but one of the most intriguing partnerships in mystery books.

Not only is Louie - the back cat that Temple pursues - intent on leading her to discover the body of Pennyroyal Press publisher Chester Royal- he also manages to squirm hs way into her heart - especially when he does a Sidney Carton and risks life and limb to help rescue Baker and Taylor - two cats who have been catnapped at that same ill-fated convention.

Temple is a Mighty Mite - small but brave and ferociously curious. Following Louie's lead, and with a bit of martial arts training from her divine new neighbor, Matt Devine - she manages to solve all the crimes. In the process she acquires a roommate and protector - the somewhat oversized but magnificent Midnight Louie.

It is the rollicking beginning to an aphabetical series of Midnight Louie mysteries - what could be looked on as the first chapter of one very long and entertaining mystery saga. While each book in this series stands on its own merits as a good read, it is great fun to start at the beginning and read the books in order. Then the real structure of this series becomes evident and the entertainment value triples.

Louie is not your ordinary cat detective. He plays an active part in solving the mysteries he encounters, whether it is simply calling attention to the most vital clues or by intervening tooth and claw to preserve and protect. He's tough talking, with an amusing way with words - a sort of feline Sam Spade but with a heart of gold - although he'd prefer that you not notice that. And Temple Barr is not your typical small female with a shoe obsession, but an intrepid investigator full of courage and heart.

Along the way we get some intriguing glimpses into the world of publishing as well as the vagaries of human nature. The Midnight Louie series may read like light cozy mysteries on one level, but read carefully. They are also insightful on a number of levels - and that insight keeps growing as the mystery progresses.

A Fine Mystery Set In An Unusual Place
Midnight Louie does his usual great job of "solving" this murder mystery set in a Bookseller's Convention. Actually, he finds the body and of course he is responsible for his human, Temple Barr learning who did the dastardly deed and proving it. Miss Barr gets into a lot of trouble along the way and, of course, Midnight Louie "rescues" her from it. Midnight Louie is the ultimate in purrivate eyes with his tough, hardboiled outlook, just like the human detectives.

Another Cute Book from Carole Nelson Douglas
Everything I've read by Carole Nelson Douglas has been both kind of sweet and not particularly original -- the kind of book that leaves you thinking, "Well, that was cute." This can either be marginally appealing, as in her Irene Adler series, or downright annoying, as in her attempts at high fantasy. _Catnap_ falls into the first category, as the author jumps on the feline sleuth bandwagon.

For those interested in the combination of cats and crime, I place the maunderings of Midnight Louie solidly between the interminable "Cat Who..." series and the delightful adventures of Mrs. Murphy. Louie plays a marginally more active role in crime solving than the Siamese Pair of the former, but is not quite so involved as the latter. Like Mrs. Murphy, he has a perky female associate to do the actual work of putting together clues and bringing them to the attention of the proper authorities. Unlike Mrs. Murphy, Louie seems a great deal more interested in self-agrandizement than in true crime solving. There is less of an emphasis on the legendary feline curiosity than there is on the equally legendary feline ego.

The setting is interesting as it gives a kind of perspective on Las Vegas as an alien culture. The supporting characters and subplots are derivative, and I thought the grand "revelation of the crime" scene, where the case was presented to all the suspects gathered in one room, was super unrealistic and annoying. Still, _Catnap_ kept me occupied on a grey afternoon when I couldn't think of anything better to do. If you don't go into it with very many expectations, you won't be disappointed.

As a series, the Midnight Louie books are standard for the genre and many are much more interesting and original than the first volume.The ongoing supporting cast is appealing, and the series-spanning subplots hooked me into reading past the first two books.Though the crimes and motives are fairly stock, some of the settings are quite original -- I especially liked the book set at a strippers' convention (_Pussyfoot_) and the one set at a Romance Novel convention (_Cat in a Diamond Dazzle).The series could use help from a continuity editor, however.In one book, a major event is stated to have happened both in 1969 and 1959;in others it seems that the author can't remember where one early crime happened, but sets it in this Vegas hotel or that as the whim takes her.Also, there are long sections dealing with the characters' "personal growth" that seem more like something from a psychology or self-help text than real conversations between people. And the characters have an annoying incapacity to use common contractions like "don't" or "won't,"which makes much of the dialog seem stilted and unreal.

If you like gimick mysteries with a lot of fluff and not much suspense, you could do worse than the Midnight Louie books.Agatha Christie or Dorothy Sayers they're not, but they're still amusing. ... Read more

Product Description
When several young women are discovered slaughtered in a room in a Parisian brothel, the police are forced to bring in Irene because someone in a position of power has made a discreet request for her help. But is she really to find the truth or is her presence part of a plot to conceal the murderers identity? The thing that has Irene most concernedis that the killings bear an uncanny resemblance to a series of murders that took place in London just a short time earlier.Amazon.com Review
In 1889, opera diva and amateur investigator Irene Adler (the only woman ever to outwit Sherlock Holmes in the original Conan Doyle stories) is called on to investigate the slaughter of several prostitutes in a Parisian brothel. The house is frequented by British royals and not entirely unknown to Adler's wealthy patron. Adler sees that the French murders bear a disturbing resemblance to the still unsolved English crimes perpetrated by Jack the Ripper. Along with her companion Nell Huxleigh, who plays Dr. Watson to Adler's Holmes, and a mysterious young woman named Pink, whose intimate knowledge of sexual peccadilloes in high and low places horrifies Nell, Adler follows an unknown killer's bloody trail from the Arc de Triomphe to the catacombs and sewers of late-19th-century Paris. This is a lively historical thriller as well as a smart and faithful extension of the Holmes canon. Irene Adler justly deserves the spotlight Carole Nelson Douglas shines on her in this, her fifth outing. --Jane Adams ... Read more

Customer Reviews (34)

4.5 stars
I'm so glad I've gotten back into reading this series. I'm even happier that I waited, even though I've been buying the books in hardcover as soon as they've been released. At least I'm happy that I didn't read this one when it first came out.

Why? Because it's part one, and it wasn't clearly indicated that there was a part one and a part two; nor did it end with a conclusion of any sort. Since part two, Castle Rouge, was right there on my TBR pile, I didn't mind, but I imagine I'd have been rather upset if I'd had to wait a year for it, and not in the good way I was upset about waiting to find out what happened at the end of Evanovich's High Five.

Anyway, ex-opera diva Irene Adler Norton, best known as the only woman to outwit Sherlock Holmes, and her companion Nell Huxleigh are back in Paris, while Irene's husband Godfrey is off to Prague on business for the Rothschilds. Irene gets a summons from An Important Personage to investigate a pair of gruesome murders in a brothel that are uncannily like those of Jack the Ripper some months earlier in London.

Irene and Nell are joined by "Pink," the young prostitute who discovered the bodies. It's soon apparent that Pink isn't exactly what she seems, but Irene brings her home and includes her in their investigations, which also involve the Prince of Wales, Bram Stoker, Sherlock Holmes, and Buffalo Bill.

Once again, I very much enjoy Nell's first-person narrative. She's a somewhat unreliable narrator, often misunderstanding things, though this case is a definite eye-opener for her. And that's part of why I didn't like this book as well as the previous ones: the chapters alternate between Nell and Pink and an unidentified, but also female, source. There's a reason for having more than one narrator, and Pink did grow on me after an initial dislike, particularly after we learn her secret, but the narrator change did distract from the story.

I also missed the character of Godfrey, who seemed too conveniently missing until his absence was better explained toward the end of the book. Mostly, though, if I'd realized before the very end that Chapel Noir was just part one, I think it would have been another 5-star read. I'd have been less impatient, knowing I had nearly 1000 pages for the threads to all tie together.

Day Tripper, yeah!
She took me halfway there. I HATE when books continue in another tome, yet the reader is not warned ahead of time. The author thus forces you to buy the second book. Guess what? I am requesting it from the library. Other than that Ms. Nelson Douglas has a masterful command of the language and the epoch and her Irene Adler sereis are most entertaining.

Tracking Jack the Ripper
"Chapel Noir" and "Castle Rouge" are two halves of one very, very long novel. You can't enjoy them separately, but that's no reason not to wade in with Irene Adler and Nell Huxleigh on another Victorian sleuthing and competition with the indomitable Sherlock Holmes.

This time, Carole Nelson Douglas offers a new analysis of the Jack the Ripper murders and examines old and new suspects for the role of "Saucy Jack" as her inquiry agent, Irene Adler, investigates Ripper-like crimes in Paris. For help, Irene enlists the real-life Bertie, Prince of Wales, Baron de Rothschild, Buffalo Bill Cody and Bram Stoker. She delves deeply into religious cult symbolism and mystery and discovers through Richard von Krafft-Ebing's "Psychopathia Sexualis" that the Ripper's slaughters are far from unique. As we could well tell her with such modern examples as Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Gacy.

In addition to Penelope Huxleigh's exhaustive diaries are observations from a mysterious yellow journal and from the journal of the irritating Pink, a supposed habitué of a Paris "maison de rendezvous." These lead us on a harrowing journey through Paris, London, Prague and Transylvania to the far-fetched, but possible, conclusion of this entertainingly dark novel.

As admirable as Irene Adler is, and the perfect foil for Sherlock Holmes, for me the best character in the series has been--and remains--the very human, Nell Huxleigh. This prim and proper parson's daughter has a taste for grue and gore that she continually denies, yet she won't be left out of the adventure despite her traditional upbringing. Nell's stretching and growing personality provides the dry and wry humor that permeates the series, and in this story she has ample opportunities to see herself in new lights.

This review is based on earlier hardback editions.

Welcome back Irene Adler and Nell.
Come join Ms. Douglas on a wild ride in Paris in spring of 1889.It is the year of the unveiling of the Eiffel Tower as well as the scene of the 1889 World's Fair.And Irene and Nell are on the trail of a particularly vicious killer.Could it be that Jack the Ripper who terrorized London last fall has moved on to Paris?There are a number of particularly gruesome killings involving women in Paris that spring.So Irene and Nell who are joined by a young American protegy called Pink are trying to stop the slaughters.With the aid of Sherlock Holmes, an American trapper called Buffalo Bill Cody, an Indian tracker called Red Tomahawk as well as some French Gendarmes, it looks like they may be successful.But be prepared this book leaves the reader with a mighty big cliff-hanger, so that we feel that we have to rush right out and get the next book in the series.Ms. Douglas' series is a winner.I am really enjoying the stories about Irene Adler.

Repetative and boring
A number of authors have attempted to follow Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes' tales with new exploits of their own devising. Some have succeeded and some have failed. Chapel Noir is an example of a failure. Although the book focuses on Irene Adler and only tangently includes Mr Holmes, it attempts to use the famous detective as a lure to bring in unsuspecting readers. I was intrigued at the thought of a story including Mr Holmes, Irene Adler (the woman), and Jack the Ripper. What I found was a story that was repetative and boring. I can only read so many times about the wardrobe of Irene Adler or the manner in which Mr Holmes and Doctor Watson misunderstood her. Repeating the same information yet using different words is still the same information. This was a 450+ page book that could have easily been tailored down to half the size. If you are looking for a book with action, this is not it. If you are looking for a book with solid dialogue between parties, this is not it. I felt this was a waste of my time. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A huge confusing mess
I gave it 2 stars because certain scenes were beautifully written.But.There was so much going on, I got confused and was in a hurry for it to end. ... Read more

Product Description
Midnight Louie is the savvy black tomcat who stars in his very own series by Carole Nelson Douglas. One tough hombre, he knows the score and always gets his man . . . or rat. Louie's hot on a new case-a whole bunch in fact, in Midnight Louie's Pet Detectives. He's pulled together stories of mystery, murder, and mayhem to bring us some of the wildest-and furriest-cases around, written by today's most prominent authors.

With an introduction from Lawrence Block and all-new stories from such masters of the mystery as Dorothy Cannell, J.A. Jance, Nancy Pickard, and Ann Perry, as well as a reprint from Lilian Jackson Braun, Midnight Louie's Pet Detectives is a treat for mystery readers . . . and animal lovers of all flavors.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

A delightful collection of stories
Actually, I never heard of Midnight Louie until I read this book.My wife found it in a library search for stories by Lillian Jackson Braun.One of her stories from 1966, "The Dark One," is reprinted in this book, so it showed up in the search.The rest of the tales in this anthology are copyrighted 1998, same year asthe book came out, which suggests they are new tales written especially for Midnight Louie's collection.

In each story, one or more animals plays a role in solving a mystery. In some cases, the animal itself is the detective, while in others, the animal provides a vital clue for his or her dumb humans.Not only dogs and cats, but also elephants, raccoons, an opossom, a lovebird, a robin, a half-wolf and a Tasmanian Devil take their turn at sleuthing here.

Some favorites:In "Daisy and the Silver Quaitsch," the neighborhood dogs literally dig up clues to tip off their clueless masters."Kittens Take Detection 101," introduces us to two young cats (who don't even know how to use capital letters yet!) who find a dead body while sneaking out to explore their neighborhood.In "Final Vows," cats literally do have nine lives (or more!), and the feline detective, Colonel Mustard, returns from the dead to discover who poisoned him and help save the rest of the neighboorhood cats from the same fate."On the Take" features a soft-hearted cop who finds a unique way to place stray cats in good homes.(If I lean toward the cat and dog stories, maybe it's because I have three dogs and ten cats.But the Tasmanian Devil get his due here, too, when a careless bomber sets off a charge near his cage, and "A Hamster of No Importance" solves a series of high-society Jewel thefts.)

Each story has an introduction by Midnight Louie, the feline detective created by Carole Nelson Douglas (who also happens to be the editor of this book.)Like I said, I had never heard of Louie before but, after enjoying this wonderful anthology, I plan to track him down and read more about his adventures.CaroleDouglas, you have a new fan!

Read this one to your own pet detective . . .
Anthologies are very popular these days, providing delightly appetizers that amuse and enlighten and tease while introducing readers to new and wonderful authors. An anthology may be considered successful if there are just one or even two terrific stories contained in its pages. This particular one succeeds admirably, as nearly all seventeen of them are wonderful. Two in particular stand out, however. Suppose you were asked who, of all the currently published mystery writers with whom you might be familiar, would be best suited to write a short mystery in the voice of a Tazmanian Devil? If you said Barbara Paul, you'd be absolutely correct. GO TO THE DEVIL is truly hilarious, and well worth the cost of the entire book, even if you didn't read any of the others.

But if you did that, you'd miss out on FINAL VOWS by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, in which more cats than not do have nine lives, and even if you don't particularly like cats, you'll still enjoy this whimsical bit of fantasy, in which all the neighborhood's cats (living and otherwise) catch the culprit.

Other stories (by such mystery luminaries as Anne Perry, Dorothy Cannell, and Nancy Pickard) feature other cats or kittens, a couple of dogs, a hamster, and an owl. It's a very pleasant and enjoyable read, not least of which are the terse introductory comments from the title character himself--Midnight Louie!

The Meows Have It
Midnight Louie has done it again! Not only is he a sleuth extraordinairebut now an editor and reviewer of short stories with animals (not onlycats) as the featured heros. If you love the Midnight Louie series here isa way to get to know him better and enjoy new stories by excellent authors!

Louie hosts different animal-sleuths in this A-one anthology
Who in the world can be more deserving to edit an animal mystery anthologythan Mr. Midnight Louie's alter-ego, Carole Nelson Douglas.Although Ms.Douglas credits Lillian Jackson Brown as the first lady of feline felonyfiction, many a reader will beg to disagree because Louie is the SherlockHolmes of the animal sleuthing universe.

The detectives, suspects,and villains of these short stories are not limited to canines and felines. An elephant, an owl, and even the Tasmanian devil, etc. star in thiscollection.The contributors include such luminaries like Dorothy Cannell,Ed Gorman, Nancy Picard, Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, Toni Kelner, JeanHager, Carole Nelson Douglas, and Midnight Louie, etc. provide wonderfultales that will thrill fans of the sub-genre with its diversity,intelligence, and superb short stories.One last comment is that readerswill hopefully heed the closing message of Ms. Douglas that humans muststop animal abuse.

Harriet Klausner ... Read more

Product Description
That rough-and-tumble black tomcat Midnight Louie and his flame haired human companion Temple Barr are looking forward to a Christmas vacation spent in the Big Apple. But there's more than merriment to be found in New York City--there's a murder to be solved, and Louie's' on the move.

When an ad agency's head honcho dons his traditional Santa suit for a company party, Midnight Louie scents a murderous trap, and soon someone has put jolly old St. Nick into permanent deep freeze. Meanwhile, Louie's rival in romance is still trying to turn him into kitty litter, and Mystifying Max the Magician isn't about to let the holidays pass with making a surprise proposal that leave Temple breathless.

Can one little kitty apprehend the perpetrator, play Cupid, and make everyone's Christmas bright? If his name is Midnight Louie, anything is possible!
... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Louie Takes Manhattan
I have to admit so far, this was my favorite Midnight Louie mystery.When Santa is murdered, Louie is on the case along with persistant Miss Temple Barr, they will not rest until the case is solved.The descriptions of New York and it's beauty and hustle and bustle made me smile, remembering my trips to the big apple. Temple's Aunt Kit is a hoot! I enjoyed all the background info into the 1960's.
There is a lot of action and developments in the subplots, involing Cliff Effinger, and Temple's suitors Max and Matt.I especially enjoyed Matt's holdiay trip home to Chicago to confront his family and to try and get some answers to the questions about his life growing up and his ethnic background. His Christmas opens up his mind to new possibilites.
As usual, Midnight Louie is the best.You never know what he will do next!
Very enjoyable and well written.Thank you, Ms. Douglas, for such good story telling.I cannot wait to read the next book!

Fantastic Who-Done-It for the Holidays
Las Vegas advertiser, Temple Barr, and her black tomcat, Midnight Louie, are looking for a fun holiday vacation in New York City, where Temple will play stage Mother to Louie, in an attempt to land him a part as a pet star in a new commercial. In Temple's opinion, New York City is filled with lights, people, and best of all, no dead bodies. But when the boss of an ad agency dresses up as Jolly Old Saint Nick for a holiday party, Midnight Louie just knows it's a trap, and before they know it, Saint Nick is dead, and Temple and Midnight Louie are on the case. But between detective work, Louie's rival in Temple's love, Max, appears with a surprise holiday proposal, which leaves Temple breathless, and may leave Louie out in the cold.

This was my first Carole Nelson Douglas novel, and I am not at all disappointed in the turn out of it. Midnight Louie is a great character, who keeps you hanging on his every word, even though he's only a cat, and leaves you wanting more. Temple, while a tiny woman, is a tough one. Her rambunctious personality keeps you turning the pages until the crime is solved, and the case is put to rest. Douglas is a fantastic author who pulls you into the story, and doesn't let you out until the very last sentence. Her frequent talk about AIDS in the novel proves that she is very socially conscious, and interested in spreading the word of being safe. A fantastic who-done-it for the holidays that all mystery fans will enjoy and relish in.

Erika Sorocco

Carole Nelson Douglas - Does it again... A GREAT READ!!!!!
The Midnight Louie mysteries series is a GREAT READ!!! The deiscriptions of Las Vegas ( and in this book New York) are right on the money and makes the reader long to take a trip to Las Vegas!!

With each new book, theplot gets thicker, the competition between Max and Matt gets better witheach new installment! Which one will Temple choose??Midnight Louis is acat after my own heart, and I love his point of view and devotion to hishuman.

Congrations to Carole Nelson Douglas on a another hit book!!

Merry Christmas from everyone's favorite feline PI
They're back, Midnight Louie, that irresistable dude about town and his favorite human, Temple Barr.This time, the duo sets out to take the Big Apple by storm as Louie auditions for the position of chief spokescat. Once again, however, they find themselves in the thick of another murder asthe actor hired to play Santa Claus at the ad agency Christmas party, turnsup dead.Never fear, Louie is on the case, sniffing out clues (and catnip)wherever they may be! Meanwhile, in Las Vegas. ex-priest, Matt Devine,keeps Lt. Molina's life from becoming dull as he tracks down the illusiveCliff Effinger, while Temple's other beau, Max Kinsella tries some holidaymagic of his own. Douglas paints a vivid picture of her characters, bothhuman and feline, and their relationships, while weaving a mystery thatkeeps the reader engrossed until the last page.Merry Christmas to all andto all a good read from Carole Nelson Douglas and Midnight Louie!

Midnight Louie srikes again:)
Las Vegas publicist Temple Barr sheds her professional persona to become the doting stage mother to her feline companion, the audacious Midnight Louie.Madison Avenue gurus are thinking of using Louie as a spokes-cat for a feline product.Temple, believing that her "Baby" needs his chance to shine, accompanies him to New York where they stay at her aunt's place.

Wherever Temple goes, a corpse will follow.During a Christmas party given by the owners of the advertising agency, Santa Claus chokes to death while performing.At first, everyone thinks that the president of the company died, but soon it is realized that the deceased is someone else.The incident seems too freaky to be an accident so Temple and Louie will not rest until they know for sure.

NYC, seen through the eyes of Temple and Louie, is a humorous and ingenious experience that almost seems absurd.Carole Nelson Douglas provides lovable Louie with several believable anthropomorphic traits that makes him seem like a feline with a human brain inside.CAT IN A GOLDEN GARLAND has a very complex sub-plot involving one of the heroine's erstwhile suitors, allowing readers a chance to understand what drives him yet holds him back from committing to his beloved.This entire series is unique and refreshing and highly recommended for someone who enjoys a different type of mystery.

Harriet Klausner ... Read more