Carole Nelson Douglas is at the top of her form with a fast-paced, funny plot that segues from the Las Vegas strip to Northern Ireland while providing a vastly entertaining intertwined tale.
Sleek, sophisticated Midnight Louie, that most precocious black cat and self-described “noir kind of guy,” prowls again in his 22nd delightful adventure. This time, the furry private eye enlists a posse of feline friends to solve murders both past and present while taking on the mob in Las Vegas.
Louie's owner, Temple Barr, is public relations consultant for the boutique Vegas hotel Crystal Phoenix, and her boss decides to hike sagging revenues by creating a Mecca for mob aficionados in the city that never sleeps. The plan includes an inventive underground “chunnel of crime” stretching from crime scene to crime scene. Temple takes on the project while balancing worries over her missing former ex-boyfriend, Max the magician, and dealing with her present fiancé, Matt, a talk show host.
Veteran mystery author Douglas deftly switches from character to character in alternating chapters to tell her tale, thereby revealing Louie’s delightful first-person (first-cat?) wry musings and take on crime-solving techniques. Interspersed are chapters that examine Temple's own quandaries. Not only cat lovers will be engaged by Douglas’ tale. Astute readers will also recognize an alphabetical cast to this well-received series.
"For me, the books I read were the call—the call to adventure, to thinking, to acknowledging other points of view. But to complete the ritual, I needed to respond."
I am surrounded by books. Every room, every space in my large, sprawling 1750s house is full of books...
Our history and experiences can define us, inspire our actions, and as writers impact our words and stories. Mine most definitely has: my father was a small-time gangster. Really.
"My ah-ha moment came when I read The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.... That was it for me – I was off to the races."
Nietzsche once wrote, “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
"Mystery books were daring and exciting, firing up my imagination and making me yearn to become a girl detective or even a secret agent. They also empowered me to make up impromptu ghost stories around the campfire for my Girl Scout troop and sneak into the cemetery at night on a dare."
Fire and Ashes, the latest Angela Richman Death Investigator mystery, is an exploration of a fatal fire. To research this novel, Viets delved into the devastating consequences of junk science and arson investigations.
