When Temple Barr, five-feet-zero of feisty redhead, goes in hot pursuit of a stray black cat streaking through a publishing convention exhibit hall, she stumbles over a big-time NY editor lying dead. While Temple and Midnight Louie are on the case, the famous publishing mascots, a pair of Scottish Fold library cats named Baker and Taylor, are kidnapped for ransom. The pair must sniff out a murderer before Murder by the Book describes their fates.

Midnight Louie is aprowl again! Award-winning mystery author Carole Nelson Douglas sets her tomcat who's a private dick on the track of murder and intrigue on the sinful streets of Las Vegas. The game is definitely afoot as the trail begins at a striptease competition, where petite public relations freelancer Temple Barr is up to her spike heels in musclebound males, siliconed females - and murder. After a contestant is found hanging from her own G-string the owner of a joke striptease business turns up dead. Then two thugs assault Temple, looking for her ex-flame, a missing stage magician. Implacable female police lieutenant C.R. Molina wants answers now, answers Temple doesn't have. Meanwhile, Temple's relationship with handsome hotline counselor Matt Devine is heating up nicely, but he may hide secrets of his own... As Temple tracks the killer, Midnight Louie pursues his own investigation. Now that fading film star Savannah Ashleigh and the Devine Yvette, her purebred Persian and Louie's platinum-haired lost love, are among the endangered, this tomcat sleuth will leave no rhinestone unturned to find the murderer...

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

Midnight Louie, the best tomcat in the crime-solving business, and his human partner, petite redheaded publicist Temple Barr, are once again in the thick of things in the city of sin. The manager of the Crystal Phoenix, one of Las Vegas' premier vacation spot, has hired Temple Barr to help clean up the hotel's image, but soon more than the Phoenix's reputation is in danger. The phoenix becomes prey to mysterious saboteurs whose little pranks just happen to keep endangering Temple's life. When Temple tangles with ex-priests, local police, FBI agents, obnoxious reporters, and a pasell of semi-reformed mafiosi who wear pastel zoot suits, it's up to Midnight Louie to get her out of knot....before it's too late.

Midnight Louie is back!...along with the human the black tomcat condescends to spend his days with: Temple Barr, a redheaded publicist whose love for expensive shoes is matched only by her affinity for trouble. This time trouble shows up on her doorstep, in the form of a boyfriend previously gone missing...during a murder investigation. No fool she, Temple decides it's time for a break. A romance writers' convention—complete with a male-model Incredible Hunk pageant—sounds like just what the doctor ordered. Unfortunately, a pair of dazzling Cinderella shoes goes missing, one of the would-be Fabios ends up dead, and Temple's investigations into the matters get more complicated—and more dangerous—than she planned. Luckily, there's a smart and smart-mouthed cat prowling around.

Midnight Louie, the rough-and-tumble black tomcat, and Temple Barr, his redheaded human companion, are up to their ears in intigue with a murder at a seance. Can spirits kill? Louie doesn't think so, but he'll have to do battle with powerful magicians both tangible and ethereal to prove it.

That rough-and-tumble black tomcat Midnight Louie and his flame-haired human companion, temple barr, think shooting a cat food commercial will allow them to play hooky from mayhem. But life is never easy for the vivacious pair, and Temple and Louie are center stage when beloved comic actor (and notorious ladies' man) Darren Cooke is shot to death. Cooke had asked Temple to find out if a mysterious stalker was his unacknowledged daughter, and she is determined to find out the truth. But the search for truth raised a dangerous question: Was this really a murder, or was Cooke a tortured funnyman who finally rang down his own curtain.

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!

Back in Las Vegas after a holiday trip to the big apple, feline detective Midnight Louie witnesses death on the Nile when the battling Egyptian barges outside the Oasis hotel bring a dead body to the surface. The soggy victim is well known to Louie's redheaded, high-heeled human companion, Temple Barr: her two best beaux are loosely related to the drowned man, and both have reasons to want him dead. Perhaps Temple can finally choose between handsome hotline counselor Matt Devine and the mysterious magician, Ma Kinsella—by finding out which of them is a killer. And then there are the new girls in town: an inscrutable lady magician named Shangri-La, who may play a bigger role in this scenario than anyone might think; and her winsome Siamese familiar, who may solve Louie's problems by giving him the key to her heart—or the key to solving the mystery.

At the Blue Dahlia, the forties-style music club where homicide lieutenant Carmen Molina moonlights as a torch singer, life is becomming considerably less easygoing. An unidentified woman is found dead in the parking lot, with the words "she left" spray painted nearby. Soon, another victim is found dead in a church parking lot. Is a serial killer at work in Molina's backyard? And will Molina have to call in the dreaded amateur sleuth Temple Barr to help crack the case? Meanwhile, Midnight Louie, Temple's jet-black feline with a nose for the notorious, get entangled in a reluctant sleuthing partnership with his disapproving daughter, Midnight Louise. Will Louie and the feisty Louise be able to crack their case? Does Molina really need Temple's help. or does she have more devious plans in mind? And will Louie and Temple be able to accept their imperfect partners before they meet with a far more agonizing end?

Midnight Louie, jet-black feline sleuth with an attitude, si on the prowl again—and this tme to a rock'n'roll soundtrack. Louie's human partner, Temple Barr, learns that the remodeling of a local hotel is being held up by a ghost—and no ordinary ghost at that. In fact, the workmen sware it's none otyher than that jumpsuit-wearing King of Ronk'n'Roll, Elvis Presley. The opening of Las Vegas' first Elvis-themed attraction might explain this unscheduled appearance. But what of the death threats against the Priscilla Presley-esque daughter of Crawford Buchanan, Temple's professional enemy? And who is the late-night caller to Temple's former suitor, radio counselor Matt Devine, who sounds remarkably like the King of Rock 'N Roll? When a dead Elvis is found, the question is not only whodunit, and why, but who the dead man really is. Could the King himself have been hiding behind the guise of his own imitators, and is he really dead again, or for the first time . . . or not at all?

Midnight Louie, the purring P.I., is a jet-black sleuth making his twelfth outing in Carole Nelson Douglas' Cat in a Kiwi Con. While his human partner, public relations whiz Temple Barr, and her significant other, ex-magician Max Kinsella, are bespelled by murder most magical on a Las Vegas university campus, Louie has followed the lethal and lovely Siamese, Hyacinth, into the world's largest science fiction and fantasy convention, GigantiCon. They're all there: Hercules and Xena, elves and aliens, captains and crew, and Godzillions of fans—both in costume and out. When a prominent player is killed, not only is the method of death perplexing, but the suspects in this case are a very unusual cast of thousands. Soon it becomes clear that none of the investigators are safe in an atmosphere that provides cover not only for an unknown murderer, but for an antagonist in an alien guise who is after the hides of each and every one of them. Joining in the fantasy-in-progress may be their only hope.

Murder shows its teeth and claws for Midnight Louie readers when that jet-black feline sleuth who thinks he's Sam Spade returns to delight his legions of fans. This time, not only does Louie have to bail out his favorite investigative partner, public relations woman Temple Barr, but he has to save a fellow feline from a charge of Murder One. When a big-game hunter is found dead with only a leopard for company, all of Louie's and Temple's allies and enemies converge on the case. And the fun really begins when the unofficial investigators learn the leopard is Osiris, a performing Big Cat who was kidnapped from his magician owner only days before the murder. Things get really wild when a cadre of ardent animal rights protestors secretly stakes out the premises, determined to stop the illegal killing at any price, even their own lives.... Or someone else's.

Midnight Louie, black cat detective, is hunting a mysterious organization of renegade magicians called the Synth. In this, the fourteenth Midnight Louie mystery, Louie's daughter Midnight Louise—and some of her friends—join the nations number-one cat sleuth as he trails a Synth illusionist and her scheming Siamese assistant. While the felines battle black magic, Louie's cherished roommate, the plucky PR freelancer Temple Barr, is investigating the Synth despite the discouragement of homicide lieutenant C.R. Molina—but Molina herself is secretly moonlighting as an undercover operative to nail the killer of a young stripper. The search has boiled down to two suspects: Temple's current significant other and Molina's ex-lover. As Louie and his human friends sink deeper into a lose-lose situation of crime and punishment, there doesn't seem to be a way out... except another murder.

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 . 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 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.

Temple Barr is a sharp and sassy public relations ace in Las Vegas whose life is finally taking a turn for the better. Hard-nosed homicide lieutenant Carmen Molina is too busy chasing after her own ex-lover, rogue L.A. cop Rafi Nadir, to pursue Temple's boyfriend, sexy magician Max Kinsella, and nobody Temple knows has been murdered... at least, not in the past few weeks. Temple takes this downtime as a signal she should buy a new pair of Jimmy Choo spike heels, and accept the job of planning a glitzy week of opening events for a trendy new furniture showroom. Dealing with temperamental décor mavens is no problem for a woman who's saved leopards from big game hunters, tracked killers through strip clubs, calmed the cantankerous owners of Las Vegas' most glamorous hotel, and seen the ghost of Elvis-until the life of feng shui expert and media-crowned domestic dominatrix Amelia Wong is threatened. Suddenly Temple is neck deep in trouble... and bodies. And Temple has one more problem-one she doesn't even know about: her roommate Louie, and his maybe-daughter Louise, have decided to make sure that Temple's search for a killer furniture arrangement doesn't mean curtains for her. Midnight Inc. Investigations, their PI firm, is on the case. The catch? Louie is Temple's cat.

What's a Girl to do when she's forced to be, well, a girl? That's what's hot shot freelance PR woman and amateur detective Temple Barr has to do when as a favor to top cop Carmen Molina she goes undercover at Teen Queen, the newest pop star-search reality TV show, all in the hopes of protecting Molina's 13-year old daughter. It's no picnic trying to be a teenager again, even after a punk makeover. To make matters worse, Temple's in danger of being uncovered by the show's celebrity judges, including her romance novelist aunt and her arch-enemy, Crawford Buchanan. And just to make life more interesting there are her fellow contestants, unnatural blondes aplenty who are all too willing to sabotage and backstab their way to the top. Unfortunately, someone has a real knife out for Las Vegas' young women, and it's up to Temple and her underfoot undercover partner, Midnight Louie, to ferret out the killer.

Midnight Louie, alley-cat extraordinaire and Las Vegas' hairiest, hard-boiled PI, finds himself literally walking a tightrope when a fabulous museum opening at one of Sin City's swankiest casinos is marred by a little thing like death. Louie's loyal roommate, feisty PR freelancer Temple Barr, has snagged the commission of her repping the opening exhibition of the Russian Czars' priceless treasures at the New Millennium Hotel, the apex of which is the Czar Alexander Scepter, a priceless jewel-encrusted artifact. Trouble is, the hotel has booked an aerial magic act right above the exhibition. Temple works at a breakneck pace to coordinate this logistical nightmare. Tragedy ensues when a performer dies right above where the collection will be displayed and the police threaten to shut everything down. But the word "no" isn't one heard often in Las Vegas when money is involved and the show (or shows) must go on. Just as things seem to be working perfectly, another performer dies…and the scepter vanishes. The culprits could be international art thieves, Russian mafioso, or Chechen rebels out to embarrass the current Russian government. Or it could be someone else, perhaps someone Temple knows all too well ... Temple and Louie both have enemies in the magic act—evil magician Shangri-La and her curare-nailed performing Siamese cat, Hyacinth—and on the ground—ever-suspicious homicide lieutenant Carmen Molina, who's itching to pin the heist and murders on Temple's significant other, ex-magician and sometimes ex-spy Max Kinsella, now oddly AWOL. Worse, as Temple and Louie's separate investigations bring them both close to the truth, it's clear that someone has decided to hang them out to die too. Can fancy footwork and detection save our intrepid duo? Find out in Carole Nelson Douglas' Cat in a Quicksilver Caper.

Cat in a Red Hot Rage is the nineteenth title in Carole Nelson Douglas' sassy Midnight Louie mystery series. This tough talking twenty-pound tomcat PI is playing at the top of his game as he walks the walk and talks the talk on the mean streets of Las Vegas. Temple Barr and Midnight Louie are up to their tails in froufrou, chapeaux, and murder when the Red Hat Sisterhood convention hits Las Vegas. Electra Lark, Temple's spirited landlady, has dragged her to the con. Accused of murder after a woman is found strangled with an official Red Hat Sisterhood scarf, Electra begs Temple to clear her name by posing as a pink-hatter, an under-fifty member of the organization. Louie and his partner in Midnight Investigations Inc., Midnight Louise, join the hunt for the killer at the Crystal Phoenix. They find old friends already there, including C-movie actress Savannah Ashleigh, and her Persian cats, Louie's ex-love, the Divine Yvette, and her sister Solange. As Temple and Louie dig under all the makeup and shopping bags it becomes clear that a whole lot of folks want to crush or cash in on the red-hot rage of female empowerment that is the Red Hat Sisterhood.

Cat in a Sapphire Slipper is the twentieth title in Carole Nelson Douglas’s sassy Midnight Louie mystery series. The tough-talking, twenty-pound, tomcat PI is as feisty as ever as he and his gang try to keep his favorite roommate from losing her man. PR honcho Temple Barr’s romance novelist aunt Kit has wound up in a romantic plot of her own. She’s snagged one of the most eligible bachelors on the Strip, one of the elder Fontana brothers, a silver-tongued reputed ex-mobster with a heart of gold. There is to be a wedding…and where there is a wedding there is usually a bachelor party. Things go disastrously wrong when the entire party is hijacked and taken to a remote ranch out in the Nevada desert, a place where the women are wild and the sex is legal. And among the group? None other than Temple’s own Matt, an ex-priest. Truly a fish out of water, he soon comes upon a beautiful young woman who is quite naked and most thoroughly dead. Given the remoteness of the location with very few suspects on hand (plus the Fontanas' shady reputation) this could be a very bad thing indeed. And Louie? Well, he managed to go along for the ride and once again it’s up to that big old tomcat to bail out his humans and save the day. Cat in a Sapphire Slipper is a fast-paced, racy mystery with a loveable cast of characters and one terrific tough dude to keep them all in line.

Temple Barr and Matt Devine make a cozy engaged couple, and the feisty redhead is all for her handsome radio host fiancé staring in a week-long televised Las Vegas charity event, "Dancing with the Celebs." But while ex-priest Matt struggles to master the sexy moves of the tango, a killer stalks the dance floor. Not only is Matt in danger, but so is the lovely tween Mariah, daughter of homicide cop C. R. Molina, who is dancing in the Junior Divison of the show. And so Temple gets dragooned into resurrecting her kicky teen persona, Zoe Chloe Ozone, now an Internet hottie, to ensure Matt and Mariah don't foxtrot into a fatal mistep. Where is Louie in all this? Well, he's out and about, proving that he's still the cat's meow. But he's got his paws full as he tries to keep all the various players in his little troupe from dancing right into death's arms....

Temple Barr, publicist extraordinaire, is itching to bring off her most dangerous and exciting assignment, helping to launch an endeavor that many a Vegas showmen have dreamed of: a Las Vegas mob museum/casino. While city powers-that-be hem and haw over doing an official project on the subject, the Family Fontana plans to connect two hotels with a "Chunnel of Crime" featuring an underground speakeasy, a fast "ride" through Vegas crime history by Gangsters custom limo sevice, and other fun attractions. Temple's grand scheme to do a live "opening Bugsy Siegel's vault" media event built around a huge safe found buried underground produces a two-day-old body wearing white tie and tails. With Temple's magician-counterterrorist ex-lover, Max, gone missing and her new fiancé, radio shrink Matt Devine, in Chicago for week-long media gig, Temple must depend on "the Vegas Strip Irregulars," a posse of cats, to solve murders old and new that smack of mobs vintage and all too contemporary. Success, or failure, could cost Temple her life, and all nine of Louie's.

Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta: A Midnight Louie Mystery (Midnight Louie Mysteries)

In Carole Nelson Douglas' Cat in a White Tie and Tails, Midnight Louie goes along as chaperone when PR whiz Temple Barr and her fiancé, rising media star Matt Devine, head to Chicago so she can meet his family. Matt's mother has a tragic past primed to rise and bite anybody in reach, even the ex-alley cat sleuth. When Louie is snatched, the catnapping's surprising motive loops back to Vegas and a string of unsolved murders connected to magic…and ex-magician Max Kinsella, Temple's former significant other. Skeptical homicide lieutenant C. R. Molina has commissioned Max to investigate the cold case murder she suspects he committed two years earlier. With traumatic amnesia from a recent attempt on his life, the once infallible Max is more sitting duck than predator. It will take an alliance of frenemies to solve the serial deaths before one of them joins the fatality list.

Carole Nelson Douglas' Cat in an Alien X-Ray takes the Las Vegas gang on a science-fictional roller-coaster ride, as Midnight Louie, feline PI, and company encounter UFO enthusiasts, conspiracy nuts who are too bizarre even for tin foil hat therapy. An Area 51 attraction on the Strip threatens to bring more than starry-eyed enthusiasts to town. Once again it is up to that furballed PI Midnight Louie to keep his crew in line and save them from the attack of the creatures from the beyond…or common criminals that prey on the innocent.

"FUN, FROTHY AND CHARMING" - Publishers Weekly Readers are biting their nails as the popular alphabetic Midnight Louie feline PI mystery series nears its end with this 26th entry. The Las Vegas reunion show of a groundbreaking band revives a deadly duel between its two divas. Now petite PR powerhouse Temple Barr and her faithful feline roommate Midnight Louie, assisted by the Vegas Cat Pack, must sniff out clues to save the Crystal Phoenix hotel's reputation and any at-risk lives, including their own. For sleuths and suspects, it all comes down to the black and white lies that destroy hopes, lives, and family. Secret revealed: Douglas plans a final entry to follow the "Z" book, Cat in an Alphabet Endgame. (The series' first two non-alphabetic titles, Catnap and Pussyfoot, have been reissued in e-book as Cat in an Alphabet Soup and Cat in an Aqua Storm.)

“Just about everything you might want in a mystery: glitzy Las Vegas, real characters, suspense, a tough puzzle, and...on top of it all, a fine sense of humor and some illuminating social commentary.”—The Prime Suspect Readers are biting their nails as the popular alphabetic Midnight Louie feline PI mystery series' penultimate book arrives with this 27th entry. Even then, Las Vegas' hairiest sleuth (whose feline-noir voice has been compared to Hammett, Hammer, and Nathan Detroit) will not be hanging up his fedora. Cat in an Alphabet Endgame is still to come. In the 27th Midnight Louie mystery by New York Times Notable Book of the Year author Carole Nelson Douglas, Midnight Louie channels the jazz and swing-dance age. In Cat in a Zebra Zoot suit, Circle Ritz residents petite PR powerhouse Temple Barr and her faithful roommate, Midnight Louie, must defend their beloved elderly landlady from a bizarre murder charge that echoes a long-past atrocity. Meanwhile Temple's fiancé, Matt Devine, turns detective on a secret mission and her ex, a magician with a counter-terrorist past, tangles with vengeful IRA members and a psycho stalker in Ireland. And what makes a defunct fifties nightclub building in Las Vegas the pit of all evil and greed? All involved will face surprising dangers and choices and will balancing on the edge of survival . . . and maybe even shocking new futures. Deadly encounters and unexpected reunions force all the main characters into unforeseen loss and disclosure, the suspense leavened by Douglas' characteristic wit and heart. Janet Evanovich says of this USA TODAY bestselling series "Midnight Louie is the funniest, hairiest, hard-boiled PI on the planet." Publishers Weekly finds Temple "fun, frothy and charming". (The series' first two non-alphabetic titles, Catnap and Pussyfoot, have been reissued in ebook as Cat in an Alphabet Soup and Cat in an Aqua Storm.) "So in this typically fun-filled, witty and comic Midnight Louie outing, Douglas tackles a multitude of serious and topical issues [including] monogamy, celibacy, sexual responsibility and familial responsibility, theology, stalking, sanity and lack of same, honor and commitment, and the keeping of vows and trusts," said Mostly Murder on Cat in a Flamingo Fedora. Editor Carolyn Nichols called the Midnight Louie novels "Sophisticated, mainstream, and upmarket." Carole Nelson Douglas penned the New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Good Night, Mr. Holmes, about Irene Adler, and also writes the Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator, noir urban fantasies. She specializes in witty, adventurous novels in the mystery/thriller, high and urban fantasy, and romance/women's fiction genres. A former award-winning newspaper reporter, she has three lifetime achievement awards in mystery/suspense from RT Book Reviews and has won many Cat Writers' Association Muse Medallions. In 2012, she was inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame. She rescues cats and the occasional dog in her spare time. “Las Vegas’s feline detective extraordinary returns... Louie is an irresistible combination of Nathan Detroit and Sam Spade. Plenty of interest here for a lengthy, fun-filled series.”—Mostly Murder “If it's murder, it must be Midnight Louie time! Carole Nelson Douglas' cool dude feline detective pulls off some fancy footwork when he matches wits with a murderer...Written with stylish zest and irresistible panache, this clever tale operates on a multiplicity of levels.”—Melinda Helfer, RT Book Reviews 4½ stars

Carole Nelson Douglas’s cast of four human crime solvers must not only stop a massive Las Vegas conspiracy involving international terrorism and the FBI, but feline sleuth Midnight Louie’s roommate, PR powerhouse Temple Barr, is contemplating marriage. Will syndicated radio counselor and ex-priest Matt Devine's inside track lose out to the return of that wily dark horse, magician Max Kinsella? The suspense is killing somebody. Meanwhile, a Strip-wide resurgence the long-vanquished Las Vegas mob could have Temple in search of an undertaker rather than a Justice of the Peace. Luckily, Midnight Louie and the Las Vegas Cat Pack are planning their finest moments to bring down the baddies. But no one can help Temple find which direction her wayward heart must go.