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Midnight Louie #19
Cat in a Red Hot Rage
Cat in a Red Hot Rage is the nineteenth title in Carole Nelson Douglas's sassy Midnight Louie mystery series. This tough talking twenty-pound tomcat PI is playing at the top of his game as he walks the walk and talks the talk on the mean streets of Las Vegas.
Temple Barr and Midnight Louie are up to their tails in froufrou, chapeaux, and murder when the Red Hat Sisterhood convention hits Las Vegas. Electra Lark, Temple's spirited landlady, has dragged her to the con. Accused of murder after a woman is found strangled with an official Red Hat Sisterhood scarf, Electra begs Temple to clear her name by posing as a pink-hatter, an under-fifty member of the organization.
Louie and his partner in Midnight Investigations Inc., Midnight Louise, join the hunt for the killer at the Crystal Phoenix. They find old friends already there, including C-movie actress Savannah Ashleigh, and her Persian cats, Louie's ex-love, the Divine Yvette, and her sister Solange.
As Temple and Louie dig under all the makeup and shopping bags it becomes clear that a whole lot of folks want to crush or cash in on the red-hot rage of female empowerment that is the Red Hat Sisterhood.
Temple Barr and Midnight Louie are up to their tails in froufrou, chapeaux, and murder when the Red Hat Sisterhood convention hits Las Vegas. Electra Lark, Temple's spirited landlady, has dragged her to the con. Accused of murder after a woman is found strangled with an official Red Hat Sisterhood scarf, Electra begs Temple to clear her name by posing as a pink-hatter, an under-fifty member of the organization.
Louie and his partner in Midnight Investigations Inc., Midnight Louise, join the hunt for the killer at the Crystal Phoenix. They find old friends already there, including C-movie actress Savannah Ashleigh, and her Persian cats, Louie's ex-love, the Divine Yvette, and her sister Solange.
As Temple and Louie dig under all the makeup and shopping bags it becomes clear that a whole lot of folks want to crush or cash in on the red-hot rage of female empowerment that is the Red Hat Sisterhood.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published April 17, 2007
4 people are currently reading
274 people want to read
About the author
Carole Nelson Douglas
167 books567 followersCarole Nelson Douglas is the author of sixty-four award-winning novels in contemporary and historical mystery/suspense and romance, high and urban fantasy and science fiction genres. She is best known for two popular mystery series, the Irene Adler Sherlockian historical suspense series (she was the first woman to spin-off a series from the Holmes stories) and the multi-award-winning alphabetically titled Midnight Louie contemporary mystery series. From Cat in an Alphabet Soup #1 to Cat in an Alphabet Endgame #28.
Delilah Street, PI (Paranormal Investigator), headlines Carole's noir Urban Fantasy series: Dancing With Werewolves, Brimstone Kiss, Vampire Sunrise, Silver Zombie, and Virtual Virgin. Now Delilah has moved from her paranormal Vegas to Midnight Louie, feline PI's "Slightly surreal" Vegas to solve crimes in the first book of the new Cafe Noir series, Absinthe Without Leave. Next in 2020, Brandi Alexander on the Rocks.
Once Upon a Midnight Noir is out in eBook and trade paperback versions. This author-designed and illustrated collection of three mystery stories with a paranormal twist and a touch of romance features two award-winning stories featuring Midnight Louie, feline PI and Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator in a supernatural-run Las Vegas. A third story completes the last unfinished story fragment of Edgar Allan Poe, as a Midnight Louie Past Life adventure set in 1790 Norland on a isolated island lighthouse. Louie is a soldier of fortune, a la Puss in Boots.
Next out are Midnight Louie's Cat in an Alphabet Endgame in hardcover, trade paperback and eBook Aug. 23, 2016.
All the Irene Adler novels, the first to feature a woman from the Sherlock Holmes Canon as a crime solver, are now available in eBook.
Carole was a college theater and English literature major. She was accepted for grad school in Theater at the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University, and could have worked as an editorial assistant at Vogue magazine (a la The Devil Wears Prada) but wanted a job closer to home. She worked as a newspaper reporter and then editor in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. During her time there, she discovered a long, expensive classified advertisement offering a black cat named Midnight Louey to the "right" home for one dollar and wrote a feature story on the plucky survival artist, putting it into the cat's point of view. The cat found a country home, but its name was revived for her feline PI mystery series many years later. Some of the Midnight Louie series entries include the dedication "For the real and original Midnight Louie. Nine lives were not enough." Midnight Louie has now had 32 novelistic lives and features in several short stories as well.
Hollywood and Broadway director, playwright, screenwriter and novelist Garson Kanin took Carole's first novel to his publisher on the basis of an interview/article she'd done with him five years earlier. "My friend Phil Silvers," he wrote, "would say he'd never won an interview yet, but he had never had the luck of you."
Carole is a "literary chameleon" who's had novels published in many genres, and often mixes such genre elements as mystery and suspense, fantasy and science fiction, romance with mainstream issues, especially the roles of women.
Delilah Street, PI (Paranormal Investigator), headlines Carole's noir Urban Fantasy series: Dancing With Werewolves, Brimstone Kiss, Vampire Sunrise, Silver Zombie, and Virtual Virgin. Now Delilah has moved from her paranormal Vegas to Midnight Louie, feline PI's "Slightly surreal" Vegas to solve crimes in the first book of the new Cafe Noir series, Absinthe Without Leave. Next in 2020, Brandi Alexander on the Rocks.
Once Upon a Midnight Noir is out in eBook and trade paperback versions. This author-designed and illustrated collection of three mystery stories with a paranormal twist and a touch of romance features two award-winning stories featuring Midnight Louie, feline PI and Delilah Street, Paranormal Investigator in a supernatural-run Las Vegas. A third story completes the last unfinished story fragment of Edgar Allan Poe, as a Midnight Louie Past Life adventure set in 1790 Norland on a isolated island lighthouse. Louie is a soldier of fortune, a la Puss in Boots.
Next out are Midnight Louie's Cat in an Alphabet Endgame in hardcover, trade paperback and eBook Aug. 23, 2016.
All the Irene Adler novels, the first to feature a woman from the Sherlock Holmes Canon as a crime solver, are now available in eBook.
Carole was a college theater and English literature major. She was accepted for grad school in Theater at the University of Minnesota and Northwestern University, and could have worked as an editorial assistant at Vogue magazine (a la The Devil Wears Prada) but wanted a job closer to home. She worked as a newspaper reporter and then editor in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. During her time there, she discovered a long, expensive classified advertisement offering a black cat named Midnight Louey to the "right" home for one dollar and wrote a feature story on the plucky survival artist, putting it into the cat's point of view. The cat found a country home, but its name was revived for her feline PI mystery series many years later. Some of the Midnight Louie series entries include the dedication "For the real and original Midnight Louie. Nine lives were not enough." Midnight Louie has now had 32 novelistic lives and features in several short stories as well.
Hollywood and Broadway director, playwright, screenwriter and novelist Garson Kanin took Carole's first novel to his publisher on the basis of an interview/article she'd done with him five years earlier. "My friend Phil Silvers," he wrote, "would say he'd never won an interview yet, but he had never had the luck of you."
Carole is a "literary chameleon" who's had novels published in many genres, and often mixes such genre elements as mystery and suspense, fantasy and science fiction, romance with mainstream issues, especially the roles of women.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 21, 2017
This is the second book in the Midnight Louie series that I've read. In reading my review of Cat in a Quicksilver Caper, I can definitely say that I liked this book more. But I still wasn't a big fan of the story.
The book is divided into chapters, some that focus on the main character, Temple Barr, and others that tell the story from Midnight Louie's point of view. Midnight Louie is Temple's cat and I could have done without his chapters. He speaks in, what I believe to be but don't know for sure as I haven't read the genre, a hardboiled detective manner and I find it grating. Also, his chapters don't really advance the story. Yes, they add some insight here and there, but I'm betting I could have skipped his story completely and I probably wouldn't have missed much.
The mystery that Temple was charged with solving turned out to be a mystery to her too. Yes, she solved it with help from friends, but it took her a while to put the pieces together. And that didn't happen until after the murderer was apprehended. I don't know why, but I felt a little let down by that. Maybe I'm just used to the main character of a mystery, even a cozy one, figuring out the whodunnit before I do.
Minor grousing here: I didn't like the method the author employed of using a word and then explaining that word to me. Sometimes, I don't even think the proper definition was offered! It was really annoying. I understand what "conundrum" and "cathartic" mean, and if I don't, I can find out for myself. Also, there were parts of the book where I think the editor fell asleep. On one page, a character was called Darla and then just a couple of paragraphs later, she was named as Starla, her actual name. I've come across this in other books too, but found it hard to overlook here, probably because I wasn't overly enjoying this book.
Overall, it was an all-right read that kept me (and Temple) guessing until the end. I'll give it a weak 2.5 stars.
The book is divided into chapters, some that focus on the main character, Temple Barr, and others that tell the story from Midnight Louie's point of view. Midnight Louie is Temple's cat and I could have done without his chapters. He speaks in, what I believe to be but don't know for sure as I haven't read the genre, a hardboiled detective manner and I find it grating. Also, his chapters don't really advance the story. Yes, they add some insight here and there, but I'm betting I could have skipped his story completely and I probably wouldn't have missed much.
The mystery that Temple was charged with solving turned out to be a mystery to her too. Yes, she solved it with help from friends, but it took her a while to put the pieces together. And that didn't happen until after the murderer was apprehended. I don't know why, but I felt a little let down by that. Maybe I'm just used to the main character of a mystery, even a cozy one, figuring out the whodunnit before I do.
Minor grousing here: I didn't like the method the author employed of using a word and then explaining that word to me. Sometimes, I don't even think the proper definition was offered! It was really annoying. I understand what "conundrum" and "cathartic" mean, and if I don't, I can find out for myself. Also, there were parts of the book where I think the editor fell asleep. On one page, a character was called Darla and then just a couple of paragraphs later, she was named as Starla, her actual name. I've come across this in other books too, but found it hard to overlook here, probably because I wasn't overly enjoying this book.
Overall, it was an all-right read that kept me (and Temple) guessing until the end. I'll give it a weak 2.5 stars.
October 30, 2017
The Red Hat Sisterhood hits Vegas, and Temple's landlady, Electra Lark convinces her to attend. When one of the sisterhood is murdered, Temple finds herself looking into the crime, because Electra is one of the suspects!
Temple's aunt Kit, in Vegas from New York, is also attacked, and is saved by Aldo, the oldest Fontana brother.
As usual, Temple figures out who the killer must be, sets a trap, finds the suspect dead, and Louie must once again come to the rescue.
Temple's aunt Kit, in Vegas from New York, is also attacked, and is saved by Aldo, the oldest Fontana brother.
As usual, Temple figures out who the killer must be, sets a trap, finds the suspect dead, and Louie must once again come to the rescue.
June 22, 2019
Love it!!
December 19, 2019
Just when I think this series is getting boring and redundant, something happens and I am hooked again!
August 16, 2020
2.5 stars, but I haven't read any others in the series.
June 1, 2009
This installment in the Midnight Louie series holds up on its own much better than some previous books in the series. Temple's investigation to clear her landlord, Electra Lark, of murder is the primary focus and it is done well. The continuing plots don't advance much nor take a lot of time in this book.
Read
July 23, 2011The Red Hats come to Vegas,leaving a small trail of murder and mayhem. Since Molina is mysteriously out of the picture it is up to Temple Barr, free lance PR diva extraordinaire, and her erstwhile crew to sort it all out. The tale is a bit convoluted these days but the story remains most intriguing.
December 11, 2025
This is a typical Midnight Louie mystery. He's a roaming black cat with a human companion, Temple. Somehow they entangled in another mystery the need to solve to exonerate a friend. Temple seems to do all of the work, walking and talking with suspects. Midnight Louie and his kitty friends end up saving the day and the case!
March 31, 2011
pink ladies engages with convention corpses
Read
May 16, 2011Midnight Louie
June 3, 2013
This was a great book! It was very well written and include many twist endings and cliffhangers.
September 6, 2013
Midnight Louis #19
January 4, 2018
Have loved the series / author for years; need to catch back up on the next few books.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews