Cat in an Indigo Mood (A Midnight Louie Mystery) FROM THE PUBLISHER
Midnight Louie, that beloved, jet-black feline sleuth with a nose for the notorious, is on the prowl once again - and the beat he walks is as dangerous as ever. At the Blue Dahlia, the forties-style music club where hard-boiled homicide lieutenant Carmen Molina moonlights secretly as a torch singer, things are not as easygoing as they seem. When her gig ends, she can't miss the dead body lying next to her car on the moonlit asphalt of the parking lot, with the words "she left" spray-painted nearby. Soon, another anonymous woman found in a parking lot across town joins the unidentified woman in death. Is a serial killer at work in Molina's backyard? And will the tough lieutenant have to bite her tongue and resort to the despised help of amateur sleuth Temple Barr to crack the case? Maybe the wily police lieutenant has more devious plans in mind. Meanwhile, Louie reluctantly finds himself walking on the wild side in partnership with his feisty if disapproving daughter, Midnight Louise, when a glamorous feline client seeks his help in finding her missing boyfriend. Can both Midnight and Temple reconcile themselves to working with others soon enough to solve their respective cases - and keep themselves from ending up the same way?
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Black-cat sleuth Midnight Louie, "roommate" Temple Barr, and homicide detective Carmen Molina team up to solve two separate, but possibly serial, murders. Latest in the long-running series and sure to be in demand.
Kirkus Reviews
Midnight Louie, feline detective nonpareil, goes on the prowl for the tenth time (Cat in a Golden Garland, 1988, etc.) when Fanny Furbelow, she with the great double pair of legs, comes calling with a problem. Her boyfriend, she tells Louie, is suddenly and inexplicably "a missing pusson." Suspecting foul play, she persuades Louie that the case is right down his alley. Coincidentally, Temple Barr, sometime p.r. flack and always Louie's favorite human, finds herself enmeshed once again in things dark and murky. It seems that Las Vegas homicide lieutenant Carmen Molino thinks Temple can help solve the "she left" murders, which have been baffling criminology's finest minds. Dead females keep turning up-the words "she left" spray-painted on or near them. "She left" what? Molino hopes Temple will be able to supply the answer. It's not that the crusty, choleric cop likes Temple-or anybody else, for that matter. Instead, she respects Temple's instincts. Molino, who on the sly doubles as a torch singer (it makes her feel better about her work) also respects the instincts of ex-priest Matt Devine and magician/secret agent Max Kinsella, and gets them involved, too. Along the way, the magician does a vanishing act, but the ex-priest confronts other ex-priests-in a denouement that solves the mystery. Does Louie's case intersect with the humans' case, and is he then instrumental in cracking both? Of course, he is. In Douglas's world, it's obligatory for cats to solve cute. Unfocused and meandering, even for this loosely strung series. Give it a catcall and a half. (Author tour) .
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