Carole Nelson Douglas Official Author Site

How sad that my singing voice is more scat than lyrics, for my personal theme song would have to be “There is nothing like a dame.”

I admit it. I am a shameless admirer of the female of the species. Any species. Of course not all females are dames. Some are little dolls, like my petite roommate, Miss Temple Barr.

The difference between dames and little dolls? Dames can take care of themselves, period. Little dolls can take care of themselves also but they are not averse to letting the male of the species think that they have an occasional role in the Master Plan too.

That is why my Miss Temple and I are perfect roomies. She tolerates my wandering ways. I make myself useful looking after her without letting her know about it. Call me Muscle in Midnight Black. In our time we have co-cracked a few cases too tough for the local fuzz of the human persuasion, law enforcement division. That does not always win either of us popularity contests, but we would rather be right than on the sidelines when something crooked is going down. We share a well-honed sense of justice and long, sharp fingernails.

So when I hear that a TV reality show is coming to Las Vegas to film, I figure that one way another my lively little roommate, the petite and toothsome, will be heel-high in the planning and execution. She is, after all, a freelance public relations specialist, and Las Vegas is full of public relations of all stripes and legalities. In this case, though, I did not figure just how deeply she would be involved in murder most media.

I should introduce myself: Midnight Louie, PI. I am not your usual gumshoe, in that my feet do not wear shoes of any stripe, but shivs. I have certain attributes, such as being short, dark, and handsome . . . really short. That gets me overlooked and underestimated, which is what the savvy operative wants anyway. I am your perfect undercover guy. I also like to hunker down under the covers with my little doll. My adventures would fill a book, and in fact I have several out. My life is just one long TV miniseries in which I as hero extract my hapless human friends from fixes of their own making and literally nail crooks.

After the dramatic turn of events recently, most of my human associates are pretty shell-shocked. Not even an ace feline PI may be able to solve their various predicaments in the areas of crime and punishment . . . and PR, as in Personal Relationships.

As a serial killer-finder in a multivolume mystery series (not to mention a primo mouthpiece), it behooves me to update my readers old and new on past crimes and present tensions.

None can deny that the Las Vegas crime scene is a pretty busy place, and I have been treading these mean neon streets for sixteen books now. When I call myself an “alphacat,” some think I am merely asserting my natural male dominance, but no. I merely reference the fact that since I debuted in Catnap and Pussyfoot, I then commenced to a title sequence that is as sweet and simple as B to Z.

That is when I begin my alphabet, with the B in Cat on a Blue Monday. From then on, the color word in the title is in alphabetical order up to the current volume, Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit. (Yeow! Pink is not my usual macho color.)

Since I associate with a multifarious and nefarious crew of human beings, and since Las Vegas is littered with guide books as well as bodies, I wish to provide a rundown of the local landmarks on my particular map of the world. A cast of characters, so to speak:

To wit, my lovely roommate and high-heel devotee, Miss Nancy Drew on killer spikes, freelance PR ace Miss Temple Barr, who has reunited with her only love . . .

. . . the once missing-in-action magician Mr. Max Kinsella, who has good reason for invisibility. After his cousin Sean died in a bomb attack during a post-high-school jaunt to Ireland, he went into undercover counter terrorism work with his mentor, Gandolph the Great, whose unsolved murder last Halloween while unmasking phony psychics at a séance is still on the books . . . .

Meanwhile Mr. Max is sought by another dame, Las Vegas homicide Lieutenant C. R. Molina, mother of teenaged Mariah . . .

. . . and the good friend of Miss Temple's recent good friend, Mr. Matt Devine, a radio talk-show shrink and former Roman Catholic priest who came to Las Vegas to track down his abusive stepfather now dead and buried. By whose hand no one is quite sure.

Speaking of unhappy pasts, Lieutenant Carmen Molina is not thrilled that her former flame, Mr. Rafi Nadir, the unsuspecting father of Mariah, is in Las Vegas taking on shady muscle jobs after blowing his career on the LAPD . . .

. . . or that Mr. Max Kinsella is aware of Rafi and his past relationship to hers truly. She had hoped to nail one man or the other as the Stripper Killer, but Miss Temple prevented that by attracting the attention of the real perp.

In the meantime, Mr. Matt drew a stalker, the local girl that young Max and his cousin Sean boyishly competed for in that long-ago Ireland . . .

. . . one Miss Kathleen O’Connor, deservedly christened by Miss Temple as Kitty the Cutter. Finding Mr. Max impossible to trace, she settled for harassing with tooth and claw the nearest innocent bystander, Mr. Matt Devine . . .

. . . who is still trying to recover from the crush he developed on Miss Temple, his neighbor at the Circle Ritz condominiums, while Mr. Max was missing in action. He did that by not very boldly seeking new women, all of whom were in danger from said Kitty the Cutter.

In fact, on the advice of counsel, i.e., Ambrosia, Mr. Matt’s talk-show producer, and none other than the aforesaid Lt. Molina, he tried to disarm Miss Kitty’s pathological interest in his sexual state by losing his virginity with a call girl least likely to be the object of K the Cutter’s retaliation. Except that hours after their assignation at the Goliath Hotel, said call girl turned up deader than an ice-cold deck of Bicycle playing cards. But there are thirty-some million potential victims in this old town, if you include the constant come and go of tourists, and everything is up for grabs in Las Vegas 24/7: guilt, innocence, money, power, love, loss, death, and significant others.

All this human sex and violence makes me glad I have a simpler social life, such as just trying to get together with my long-distance amour, a shaded silver Persian I call the Divine Yvette, and to get along with my unacknowledged daughter. . .

. . . Miss Midnight Louise, who insinuated herself into my cases until I was forced to set up a shop with her as Midnight, Inc. Investigations, and who has also nosed herself into my long-running duel with . . .

. . . the evil Siamese assassin Hyacinth, first met as the onstage assistant to the mysterious lady magician

. . . Shangri-La, who made off with Miss Temple's semiengagement ring from Mr. Max during an onstage trick and has not been seen since except in sinister glimpses . . .

. . . just like the Synth, an ancient cabal of magicians that may deserve contemporary credit for the ambiguous death of Mr. Max's mentor in magic, Gandolph the Great.

Well, there you have it, the usual human stew, all mixed up and at odds with each other and within themselves. Obviously, it is up to me to solve all their mysteries and nail a few crooks along the way. Like Las Vegas, the City that Never Sleeps, Midnight Louie, private eye, also has a sobriquet: the Kitty that Never Sleeps.

With this crew, who could?