At the Las Vegas cat show, a major contender - a once beautiful Birman - is shaved before she gets a chance to compete. At the Circle Ritz, home to Midnight Louie, a big, black, tough-talking feline supersleuth and his roommate, petite PR pro Temple Barr, another Birman, landlady Electra Lark's psychic Karma, warns Louie that he must find a place where lots of cats are gathered because they are all in danger. Louie does his research by absorbing the newspaper classifieds (it's a sort of learning by osmosis, as he explains it.) And so Louie sets out for the cat show.
Meanwhile, in the Las Vegas parish of Our Lady Of Guadalupe the convent cat, Peter, is found nailed to the shed door of a neighbor, spinster Blandina Tyler, in a mock crucifixion. Miss Tyler just happens to keep many, many stray cats. Blandina is aunt to Peggy Wilhelm of the shaved Birman who is now stuck on guard duty at the cat show. Temple - in a fit of good samaritanism - volunteered to help feed them Blandina's cats to help Peggy out. Lucky for Peter, whom she finds and rushes to the vet, where he makes a good recovery. Soon she and neighbor Matt Devine are also in on the action.
Meanwhile, Louie goes undercover at the cat show - after all, it is a place where many cats are gathered and at least one has been threatened. In the process he manages to win Best of Show in the housecat category - even though he didn't enter. That's our boy - one superior dude! But it doesn't go to his head. Louie has a job to do!
Is the hot spot the show? Or the parish, where Temple's divine neighbor, Matt Devine's former grade school teacher has called him to assist with still another problem - the pastor has taken to tippling. Poor, nearly deaf Sister Mary Monica is getting obscene phone calls, although she doesn't realize it. ("He must love philosophy. He's always talking about Kant," she says.) And there are mysterious things that go bump in the night all around the convent area.
And then Miss Tyler is murdered - and we have another clutch of cats in danger - along with a baffling selection of wills, all leaving Miss Tyler's money to different people and/or cats. Suddenly suspects appear to be everywhere.
Meanwhile, back at the Circle Ritz, Temple has adopted a new roommate - a small black Humane Society cat called Caviar. Her real name, she tells her new feline roommate (whose name she does not yet know) is Midnight Louise. Louise has a plan of her own - revenge on her dear old Dad, who heartlessly deserted dear sweet Mom and the kits. Louie is not particularly pleased.
Can Louie hide his identity from Louise? Is she really Louie's daughter? (We suspect so when she manages to leave a couple clues of her own about where the action is - revealing that she has Louie's detection genes if not his massive size.) Will they be able to co-exist in Temple's apartment? Will we ever discover why Father Hernandez is tippling tequila, or who has it in for the show cats - or the convent area cats? Or who keeps calling Sister Mary Monica and talking about female dog breeding?
Somehow, Louie, Temple and Matt manage to keep all the many strands of mystery from getting too, too tangled, but not before Temple has to break out her newly learned martial arts skills to foil an arson and would-be killer, or before Louie escapes after being chloroformed in a sack - the next candidate for crucifixion.
Rest assured - Louie is tough - and smart - and is only a bit chagrined that his latest media appearance is made while he looks helpless and totally dissheveled with an oxygen mask over his puss. After all - he did lead all the right people to the right places so that the dastardly deeds are finally halted and order and safety are restored to both the cat world and the parish. You'll need to read the book to find out how - and that is an entertaining assignment indeed.
This is the third Midnight Louie book and the first in the alphabetical series that now goes through letter N. But if you missed Catnap and Pussyfoot, don't worry - this book stands on its own merits, as do all the books in the series. It is exciting, mysterious, and yet totally charming. Talking cats may sound too cutesy to believe, but there is nothing cute about Louie - or even his alleged newfound daughter, Caviar. These are street smart cats with an inborn intelligence and a novel way of looking at the world that just may give some new insights to the humans who read them.
