Cat In An Alphabet Soup (Catnap)

I began writing novels in my off hours within three years, but Midnight Louie didn’t sneak into my mind again until 1984, when I began writing fiction full time. I then persuaded him to relocate to the bright lights of Las Vegas to narrate a quartet of romances with an ongoing mystery that was solved in the last book, published as Crystal Days and Crystal Nights in 1990. Louie took to Vegas like a duck to bottom-dredging. He also took umbrage when the romance editor unilaterally lopped forty percent of his... er, pride and joy—print time—out of the books. Readers clamored for more, not less, just as Louie predicted.

Louie done wrong is not a civil or pretty sight. I had no peace until I agreed to let Louie get his claws into the real thing: Mystery with a capital “M” for murder. (Given his editorial truncation, it’s no coincidence that Louie’s first foray into crime fiction involves the icing of an editor at a booksellers’ convention.) Louie is fond of saying that there are eight million stories under the naked neon of Las Vegas. This has been one of them. He intends to tell them all, at length and in his own words, as long as his “mouthpiece” lasts.

Collaborating with Louie has been exhausting but fascinating, and, what the heck, some soft-hearted dame somewhere is destined to play patsy for the big lug. Oh, lordy, it’s catching....

P. S. If you enjoyed this novel, please consider putting a good review on Amazon.com, Goodreads and other online bookselling sites. :)

Carole and the late Midnight Louie Jr.

ML III appears in the chapter windows

Excerpt fromCat in an Aqua Storm

Book 2 of the Midnight Louie Mysteries

1

The Life That Late He Led

Even the darkest day begins with a dawn.

This one starts with me lounging on the third-story patio of my pied-à-terre as the sun rises over Muddy Mountain. Clouds shift against the distant peaks like Sally Rand’s famous ostrich fans teasing the notorious, apparently naked foothills of her form.

Fading shades of pink and blue reveal the sun’s naked red eye opening to scorch the already-browned sands. Good old Sol has been up all night, just like the folks on the Las Vegas Strip, only he did his usual disappearing act while smiling on the other side of the world. Smart fellow.

It is early July, and soon the sands will be hotter than a sizzling lucky streak on a craps table. I allow my eastward-gazing mind to picture Lake Mead as a bright London-blue topaz in its dusty desert setting. Hundreds of carp glitter like sunken gold along the shoreline, carp a-pant for the daily influx of tidbit-bearing tourists. I have never seen this treasure hoard of panhandling goldfish in person, but I hear plenty about them. I share the tourists’ fondness for carp, although my tastes run more to feedingonthan feedingto.

I expect a tranquil day. Miss Temple Barr, my doting roommate and a freelance public relations specialist, is between assignments. While I dream of vistas of wild game, my civilized heart awaits thegrrrrof the can opener. This happy sound precedes the dollop of some rich aquatic concoction into the banana spilt dish that my little doll has deemed fitting for, and large enough to accommodate, my healthy appetite.