Cat In An Alien X-Ray

I cannot give away the more intimate details of my roomie’s life. Let me just say that everything it seemed you could bet on is now up for grabs and my Miss Temple may be in the lose–lose situation of her life and times.

Here is the current status of where we are all at:

None can deny that the Las Vegas crime scene is big time, and I have been treading these mean neon streets for twenty-five books now. I am an “alpha cat.” Since I debuted in Catnap and Pussyfoot, I commenced to a title sequence that is as sweet and simple as B to Z.

My alphabet begins with the B in Cat on a Blue Monday. After that, the title’s color word is in alphabetical order up to the, ahem, current volume, Cat in an Alien X-Ray.

(Obviously, a large dose of Weird has hit Sin City, the one blot on the map it is hard to out-weird. However, my breed is known for a mystical bent, not to mention reincarnation to the power of nine, so I am more than somewhat ready to tango with anything alien.)

Since Las Vegas is littered with guidebooks as well as bodies, I here 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 had reunited with her elusive love …

… the once and future missing-in-action magician Mr. Max Kinsella, who has good reason for invisibility. After his cousin Sean died in an Irish Republican Army bomb attack during a post–high school jaunt to Ireland, Mr. Max joined the man who became his mentor, Garry Randolph, aka magician Gandolph the Great, in undercover counterterrorism work.

The elusive Mr. Max has also been sought—on suspicion of murder—by a hard-nosed dame, Las Vegas homicide detective Lieutenant C. R. Molina, single mother of teenage Mariah.…

Mama Molina is also the good friend of Miss Temple’s freshly minted fiancé, Mr. Matt Devine, aka Mr. Midnight, a radio talk show shrink on The Midnight Hour. This former Roman Catholic priest came to Vegas to track down his abusive stepfather and ended up becoming a syndicated radio celebrity.

Speaking of unhappy pasts, Miss Lieutenant Carmen Regina Molina is not thrilled that her former flame—Mr. Rafi Nadir, working in Las Vegas after blowing his career at the LAPD, and for years the unsuspecting father of Mariah—now knows what is what and who is whose.…

Meanwhile, Mr. Matt drew a stalker, the local lass that Max and his cousin Sean boyishly competed for in that long-ago Ireland …