Customer Reviews

Cat in a Sapphire Slipper: A Midnight Louie Mystery (Midnight Louie Mysteries)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Perhaps I should have given it five, because as usual, I was immersed in Louie-land from start to finish. I couldn't put the book down. One thing I missed was the sense of a real relationship between Temple and Matt, though. There has to be something between sexual tension and lack of it. For him, Temple is the first woman he's fallen in love with, and maybe his one and only. It seems to me that should be a powerful thing, and something he's still getting used to. For her, maybe the lack of feeling is more understandable, though disappointing. She was touched to be at the top of his cell phone numbers, after all. There's also still the issue of having feelings for more than one man, and her fears for Max.

There are a lot of things to like about this one, though. The action had me hooked and the team Louie and Louise put together was hilarious. There's a certain four tail point that made me laugh out loud. I've always been one to love the cat side of these stories, though.

As for the human side of the story, I enjoyed Temple and Matt and their adventure, but I was most intrigued by the glimpses of Max and Molina. In a way, they're in parallel circumstances. He's recovering in some distant (Swiss?) hospital and she's recovering from her stab wound at home. He doesn't know who he can trust, and neither does she, really. He has something to hide and so does she. I'm also grateful Max is still alive. He was too good a character to lose, though I wouldn't be surprised if he does find that heroic death at some point. As for the lady psychiatrist, she was an interesting addition. Interesting too that she disappeared after he proved he was still capable of thinking quickly and surviving. On the Molina side, it was nice to see her coming to some terms with Rafi--and that he isn't quite the bad guy we were once led to imagine. I can't help wondering how Mariah will take the news, if and when it comes out. As always with these books, I'm left wondering what will happen and looking forward to reading the next.

Las Vegas based public relations guru Temple Barr assumes her former lover magician Max Kinsella is dead. Though grieving for him, Temple is engaged to former priest Matt Devine, better known as the radio self help jockey Mr. Midnight.

However, Temple is unaware that Max is alive given the name Mr. Randolph by the hospital staff as he suffers from amnesia while healing near the Alps after taking a severe fall in Nepal. Temple's romance novelist Aunt Kit Carlson is getting married, but the bachelor party is going to be for the men including Matt at the renowned legal brothel Sapphire Slipper chicken ranch in Nye County, Nevada. To his chagrin, Matt ends up with a dead hooker. Midnight Louie believes the murder was one of passion so must decide who loved the prostitute enough to kill her.

The amazing thing about this Midnight Louie cat crime caper is that the feline is on his third life of books, but the writing magician Carole Nelson Douglas shows her skills by keeping the frolic fresh, funny and fun. The amusing look at the Nevada chicken farm industry enhances a strong whodunit while Max struggles in Europe to figure out his name. Fans of the series will appreciate this engaging lighthearted romp as Louie visits the Sapphire Slipper.

Harriet Klausner

This book has a helpful prologue introducing the characters just in case the series is new to the reader. The book will stand alone for the reader unfamiliar with the series. It goes on with some very unusual twists, but Louie and friends manage to help their humans clear up the murder and to get things put back together. There is a second story interwoven too, which helps clear up what happened to one of the characters in the last book. The book leaves you waiting for the next one to find out what is going to happen!

I have read this series from the first book and each is better than the last. I pick it up to start reading and I didn't want to put it down. I recommend this book to mystery lovers and cat lovers alike.

Midnight Louie and friends are the best cat fiction I have ever read. Read all of them... I can never wait patiently for the next one!

I won't bother with plot summation as others have already very well done so. Normally I enjoy the series, and laugh at the humor.

But too much time I felt was spent on impressing that each of the legal prostitutes must have had horrible scarred pasts, and how they are all damaged and dreadfully unhappy with their current employment. Temple Barr outright insults & disrespects them & you can clearly tell this is how the author feels about brothels and prostitution.

The girlfriends of the sort-of-gangsters are all depicted as vapid and treated with contempt & rudeness, & also clearly deserve to be punished for what frankly seems a hilarious prank.

I'm certainly not conservative or uptight but the tone in this book marred it for me. All the women are treated as sex objects and I guess I'd like something more from a female author.

I'm a huge fan of Carole Nelson Douglas and Midnight Louie (& Co!) but this one rather fell flat. The storyline was very contrived and had a bit too much of an air of unreality. Temple and Louie have been in some strange situations before, but the situations have all been believeable, or at least Las-Vegas-style-believeable. This one was just a bit too far-fetched, even for Las Vegas. The premise was excellent, and the characters were their usual zany selves, but it just didn't have the 'spark' that Ms. Douglas usually imparts in her writings. I'm happy this sits on my shelf, and have no regrets, but neither can I give it 5 stars. Fortunately, this appears to have just been a 'blip', and the next book in the series (Cat in a Topaz Tango) regained the author's fine feline touch. I doubt if this would much bother those who are reading the life history of Midnight Louie in order from A-to-Z, though!

"Cat in a Sapphire Slipper," is, perhaps, 20th in the Midnight Louie series of cat detection tales by Carole Nelson Douglas. So, evidently, a successful series with many fans. It finds Midnight Louie in Las Vegas, with his human, PR gal Temple Barr. Her aunt, former actress and romance writer Kit Carlson is planning to marry Aldo Fontana, former mobster with eight younger brothers who've all had a hand in running the city. But Aldo's bachelor party goes wrong: the bachelor brothers are kidnapped by their want-to-get-married themselves angry and jealous fiancées, and taken to a legalized prostitution ranch, apparently locally called a chicken ranch, on the outskirts of town. For a while, all is fun and games; then one of the prostitutes is found murdered, and Temple Barr and Midnight Louie must find the killer and save what remains of the good names of the Fontana boys.

Well, it isn't much of a mystery; bloodless, to be sure, and on the thin and flat side. Of course, I've noticed several series that present a mixture of cats and detection, though I don't think I've ever read any of those books. And I must say, although I absolutely love cats, have had an adopted pair - currently Divo and Fiona --for more years than most people on this earth have been alive, I don't really care for at least this book, in which a cat supposedly does most of the detection, and also narrates. Particularly since the cat narrates in a voice obviously modeled on the dialog invented by Damon Runyon (1880-1946) who wrote many short stories and sketches - some would be used to create the play "Guys and Dolls," and the movie based on it(Guys and Dolls). At any rate, Runyon was writing about Prohibition Broadway characters, horse players, gamblers, chorus girls, petty criminals, the demi-monde. The language he developed is defined as in a "distinctive vernacular style: a mixture of formal speech and colorful slang, almost always in present tense, and always devoid of contractions." If Douglas's cat must talk and narrate, can't she devise her own language for him?

Furthermore, I felt the author trivialized those women working as prostitutes at the ranch; and, to add insult to injury, she then turned around and began calling them courtesans. Now, historically courtesans have quite a different reputation: they aren't prostitutes. They tend to be beautiful and talented women, capable of singing or throwing a great party; they create social circles, and stay with lovers a long time -- perhaps a lifetime. Some great and mighty women have begun their careers as courtesans. However, Douglas loves cats; the book is dedicated to Alley Cat Allies and Feral Friends, and mentions the new program of Trap, Neuter and Release that aims to help feral felines, and I can't argue with that. I note the author also does a series of Irene Adler adventures, Irene Adler being the only woman who ever bested Sherlock Holmes in a game of wits. Perhaps I'd get on better with those, but I'm afraid the Adler books might be narrated by Irene's budgerigar.

This book is as fun and great a read as all the "Midnight Louie" books are. However, the print in the book is so light it is very difficult to read. I returned it and hope to find a copy of the book with readable print.

Midnight Louie is back in action with "roommate" Temple Barr. They are hard at work solving a murder. If you enjoyed the previous stories in this series you will enjoy this one as well.