Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

Midnight Louie #5

by Carole Nelson Douglas

Cat in a Diamond Dazzle is the eagerly awaited fifth volume in the Midnight Louie mystery series. Readers have fallen in love with Louie, the tough, tousle-eared black Las Vegas tomcat, and with Temple Barr, his human companion, a petite redheaded public relations expert whose fondness for high-heeled shoes is matched only by her aptitude for getting into trouble.
And there are troubles aplenty in Temple's life right now - from the stage magician ex-boyfriend who suddenly shows up, and whom the police would love to question about a murder he probably didn't commit, to her handsome neighbor who's proving to be quite a distraction.
Temple decides she's had enough of troubles...and men. She'll leave reality and escape to fantasy by fleeing to a romance writers' convention held in Las Vegas's most dazzling hotel, the Crystal Palace.
At the convention Temple becomes entangled with the male-model Incredible Hunk pageant, writers' rivalries, a long-lost relative, and a treasure hunt for a pair of dazzling crystal shoes with black cats on the heels. It's all good, relatively clean fun...until one of the would-be Fabios turns up dead. Temple's investigations into these matters soon become much more complicated - and much more dangerous - than she had planned.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Cats, Cozy Mystery, Cozy, Chick Lit, Romance

414 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Carole 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.

Reviews

[Betty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Midnight Louie is one of my favorite series, this book was disappointing. I like the plot, looking for Midnight Louie 's shoes, the Romance conference, the unique method of murder, Louie's love affair, and Max reappearing. However, I felt there were a number of fillers making difficult to read. I recommend this book.

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun Midnight Louie mystery!

[Pamela Shropshire · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was a lot of fun, being a sort of crossover of two of my favorite genres - amateur-detective mystery and romance, specifically historical romance. Another convention has come to town, this time the Romance Writers of Amer…, err, I mean, Great Readers of Wonderful Literature or G.R.O.W.L. for short.

I’m old. The first romances I read were books like The Witch of Blackbird Pond or one of the Cherry Ames or Sue Barton books. Then, still a preteen, I discovered Harlequins and Silhouettes. In my junior year of high school, my English teacher gave me Ashes in the Wind to read, and I was hooked on historical romances. (This book references The Flame and the Flower, also by Kathleen Woodiwiss, widely recognized as the first “modern” historical romance featuring explicit sex). My coworkers at my first job were women who also read historical romances and we devoured hundreds during the late 1980s and early 1990s.

This book was published in 1996 and there are delightful references to pop culture and current events from Michael Jackson to the OJ Simpson trial (a certain Bloody Glove is a significant clue in this book).

In addition, this book picks up with the cliffhanger from the previous book: the Mysterious Max has reappeared as cryptically as he had disappeared. Temple finds she cannot pick up where she left off with him, but she equally finds it impossible to explore a new physical relationship with Matt, so her love life is on hold.

In the meantime, Temple meets up with a long-lost aunt who, of all things, is a well-known romance author. This aunt and Temple’s landlady, Electra Lark, convince Temple to attend the romance novel convention, and she gets dragged into another murder; in this one, the murder victim is a male cover model. This bit is so funny, a sort of parody of the many hundreds of real-life romance covers graced by Fabio (one of the “cover hunks” in this book is named Fabrezio).

Finally, Temple is on the hunt for a special pair of shoes by her favorite designer, Stuart Weitzmann. If she finds the pair hidden somewhere in Las Vegas, she will win a custom-made pair of the shoes bedazzled with a cat very much like Midnight Louie outlined with genuine Austrian crystals.

A very fun romp, and it makes me want to reread some classic historical romance! 4 stars!

[Nd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had hoped that as writing of the Midnight Louie books progressed, it would become better developed, that I would come to like them more, and that they actually would be funny. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Many in this genre of goofy, nonsensical mysteries are very funny, in spite of the lack of depth, but not his particular series so far. The multiple subplots in Diamond Dazzle kept this moving somewhat rapidly, though it did bog down several times, particularly in the Louie dialog and in the lengthy descriptions of the cover hunks. A Las Vegas setting and a romance novelists' convention make it very difficult to identify any supposed positive qualities of this narrative. Even though Douglas continually points out the inequality in treatment of male covers versus female authors, in protagonist Temple Barr's life, etc., most characters' actions are just sexist and not particularly well thought out or especially funny as intended -- just annoying.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm giving this 2 stars instead of one because I have not read any of the previous books in the series and maybe that would have made a difference. But this is awful. From page one I felt like I was in the middle of the story. No context is given for the characters or the situation. The inner dialoque of the main character is all over the place. The writing in general is too florid and chaotic. I made it to page 35 and can't imagine 400+ pages of this. So I'm doing something I rarely do and calling this one DNF

[Joan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Temple Barr's missing magician boyfriend, Max, shows up, adding intrigue.

Temple is the PR person for a male cover model pageant, being hosted by has-been actress Savannah
Ashleigh. Savannah's cat, Yvette, is the love of Louie's life.

There is murder, a missing crystal shoe, trouble with Max and Temple's neighbor, former priest Matt, and run-ins with detective Molina all of which keep the story humming.

Very entertaining!

[Marilyn Kohlman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this Midnight Louie book. Each one is better than the last

Wonderful story. I love each of these books.This book was exciting and funny. Even though the book was written 20 yrs ago everything is still fun😁

[Lorie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book...was not my favorite.

Check out my full review at discardedbooks.wordpress.com

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love Midnight Louie..but this book was a little hard to get into. However, once I did, it was an enjoyable read.

[Crystal Karre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining as always

[Jeffery Swindell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took a while for the crime to happen, but I thought the story was well written and enjoyed it.

[Phyllis Kohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought that this was a fun book. Midnight Louie captured my imagination from the first page!

[Colleen Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Midnight Loui is such a incredible character as he helps out solving murders

[LaDawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am enjoying this series. I like the main characters, but I am getting a little annoyed at the assumption that pre-marital sex is normal and impossible not to resist. And, that those that do are somehow suffering some mental problems.
I'm also wondering how many more books I can read in this series before they are more explicit in that area. I've been enjoying the fact that the language and sex is not extreme. But I'm still reading the books that were written in the 80's and 90's. Wondering if the "progress" with the years.

[Eyehavenofilter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A pair of famous shoes goes missing...oh no! That's sacrilege ! As far as Temple goes, a woman who collects shoes like others collect matchbook covers. In the mean time a male hunk contestant turns up drop dead instead of drop dead gorgeous and she has to figure out what the heck is going on. Fortunately she has the help of a four footed private eye in Midnight Louie, the coolest cat in Sin city!

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this one a little disappointing. I liked Temple Barr, the main character, but it was quite confusing. The story switches back and forth between the characters viewpoints. The plot was a little confusing too. It seemed like there was just too much stuff packed into the plot. Also, they refer to stuff that happened in previous books a lot, and I was kind of lost.

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this installment in the series, more focus is on the actual crime and crime solving then on Temple's lovelife...although there were some interesting tidbits thrown in. :) I am really enjoying this series now and will continue to read them all. :)

[Phyllis Gauker · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gave this 4 stars because of the vocabulary. Many reviews say, "delightful" and it was that. This is an old book I'd bought at a yard sale, but enjoyable nevertheless. I'd read one other "talking cat" book in this series before. But there's less cat talk than in say a Rita Mae Brown book.

[Care · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just not my style of favorite book. TOO LONG, too much dialogue. I'm sure if you enjoy this kind of thing, it would be delightful.

[Helen Fleischer · Rating 4 out of 5]

good Louie romp

[Pat]

Midnight Louie

[Carole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review later

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

i LOVE me some louie!

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

She almost lost me on this one- The shoe fetish was just too much!I wanted more of the story with Matt and Max as well,but Louie was great as always. Hoping the next one is better...

[Pam Bales · Rating 2 out of 5]

Midnight Louie is a good concept. I enjoyed a talking cat who solves mysteries through several volumes. I no longer am a fan, but they were great when I first started reading them.