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Midnight Louie #3
Cat on a Blue Monday
Someone is stalking prize-winning purebreds at the annual Las Vegas Cat Show, and Midnight Louie is off on the prowl again.
As Louie, aided by a telepathic Birman cat named Karma, follows the scent of the killer, Temple is delving into the past of Matt Devine, the handsome young hotline counselor who’s captured her heart.
Soon Louie and Temple find themselves up to their tails in blackmail, extortion, and cold-blooded murder. Fans of foul play, feisty female detectives, and feline forensics are sure to find Cat on a Blue Monday just their saucer of milk.
As Louie, aided by a telepathic Birman cat named Karma, follows the scent of the killer, Temple is delving into the past of Matt Devine, the handsome young hotline counselor who’s captured her heart.
Soon Louie and Temple find themselves up to their tails in blackmail, extortion, and cold-blooded murder. Fans of foul play, feisty female detectives, and feline forensics are sure to find Cat on a Blue Monday just their saucer of milk.
374 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published June 1, 1994
10 people are currently reading
331 people want to read
About the author
Carole Nelson Douglas
156Ìýbooks564ÌýfollowersCarole 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 - 28 of 28 reviews
November 13, 2023
This is Book 3 and the best of the series so far, IMO. I think the characters and plot became more complex.
The series was published, and the setting is, the mid-1990s, and it’s interesting to note differences. For example, the instance of cat abuse would not appear if it were published today. I also enjoy the fashion bits. In this one, Ms. Douglas mentions Famolare shoes, and that rang a bell in my memory, so I googled “Famolare,� OMG! I remember those shoes from the 1970s!
We also learn the big secret about Matt Devine’s past that was previously hinted at, and it is truly a secret worthy of being hinted at. I will definitely keep reading.
The series was published, and the setting is, the mid-1990s, and it’s interesting to note differences. For example, the instance of cat abuse would not appear if it were published today. I also enjoy the fashion bits. In this one, Ms. Douglas mentions Famolare shoes, and that rang a bell in my memory, so I googled “Famolare,� OMG! I remember those shoes from the 1970s!
We also learn the big secret about Matt Devine’s past that was previously hinted at, and it is truly a secret worthy of being hinted at. I will definitely keep reading.
June 24, 2019
I generally like Midnight Louie detective novels (cozy mysteries where both the human and the cat are detectives), especially the hard-boiled chapters written by the cat. But a horrific event partway through the book was so awful that I put the book down for a few weeks. Eventually I made myself go back and finish. I’m glad I did. Much of the story is told from Matt’s point of view (Matt being a neighbor and possible love interest for the human heroine). What we learn about Matt is pivotal. But I didn’t enjoy this book much. I am hoping the next will be less gruesome.
September 30, 2015
In ‘Cat on a Blue Monday�, there is always something happening. The action never stops, as Midnight Louie, the 19 pound, black tom cat meets his upstairs neighbor, a psychic cat who warns him that a gathering of cats is in danger. Meanwhile, at a cat show, a prize Birman is found shaved, putting it out of the running for a prize. Louie’s human, Temple Barr, is taking self-defense lessons from their attractive male neighbor- who is also being tapped by the local convent to find out who is making obscene phone calls to them. The cat rescuer next door to the convent is being hassled at night by sounds at the windows. One of the convent cats is crucified on her back door (the cat lives). Are any or all of these things connected? Is the death of the cat rescuer the accident it appears to be? And is small, black Midnight Louise, whose father deserted her mother and family, related to Louie?
Louie talks like a film noir character, which takes the story at least part way out of the ‘cute’zone. Temple is resourceful and brave and, while short, gorgeous and addicted to shoes, comes close to falling into the ‘cute� zone but narrowly avoids it. It was a fun, griping read and I enjoyed it much more than I did the first Midnight Louie book. I’ll now be on the lookout for the later books in the series!
Louie talks like a film noir character, which takes the story at least part way out of the ‘cute’zone. Temple is resourceful and brave and, while short, gorgeous and addicted to shoes, comes close to falling into the ‘cute� zone but narrowly avoids it. It was a fun, griping read and I enjoyed it much more than I did the first Midnight Louie book. I’ll now be on the lookout for the later books in the series!
August 17, 2017
Hissing noises in the night ... obscene phone calls to a convent ... a bizarre incident at the Las Vegas Cat Show ... a cat, cruelly crucified on a door ... the maybe-accidental death of the local Cat Lady ...
Strange things are happening in Las Vegas. It will take the combined efforts of Midnight Louie, feline shamus extraordinaire; his human, petite P.R. Temple Barr; Temple's hunky neighbor, Matt Devine; police lieutenant C.R. Molina; and a couple of spunky nuns from Our Lady of Guadeloupe to put all the pieces of this puzzle together.
Strange things are happening in Las Vegas. It will take the combined efforts of Midnight Louie, feline shamus extraordinaire; his human, petite P.R. Temple Barr; Temple's hunky neighbor, Matt Devine; police lieutenant C.R. Molina; and a couple of spunky nuns from Our Lady of Guadeloupe to put all the pieces of this puzzle together.
May 3, 2019
I love the Midnight Louie series. This is my second time through (the first time was when they were first published) and I find the stories are even more satisfying the second time through.
There is something truly wonderful about the juxtaposition of cozy mysteries and the city of Las Vegas. Carole Nelson Douglas makes this premise work not just well but brilliantly.
Temple Barr is an endearing mix of naïveté and bravado and her nosy nature often leads her smack dab into bizarre and baffling crimes. Louie, of course, is streetwise and agile but his delight in the realm of crime solving is no less enthusiastic than Temple’s.
Read a Midnight Louie mystery whenever you want a funny, ingenious and satisfying cozy.
There is something truly wonderful about the juxtaposition of cozy mysteries and the city of Las Vegas. Carole Nelson Douglas makes this premise work not just well but brilliantly.
Temple Barr is an endearing mix of naïveté and bravado and her nosy nature often leads her smack dab into bizarre and baffling crimes. Louie, of course, is streetwise and agile but his delight in the realm of crime solving is no less enthusiastic than Temple’s.
Read a Midnight Louie mystery whenever you want a funny, ingenious and satisfying cozy.
May 22, 2017
Midnight Louie is on the prowl again.
His side kick Temple Barr is learning how to defend herself by taking lessons from Matt Devine (she has a crush on him). And this time she is on the prowl at the Las Vegas Cat show when someone shaved one of the cats--in the shape of a cross. Matt gets involved when his old school teacher (a nun) calls him with a problem at the convent. Why call him?
Between Temple (trying to save the cats), Matt (problems at the convent), and Louie (finding out a lot of cats in trouble), will they help solve the mystery murder with Molina in charge?
These are great books for those cat people who love mysteries. I'm glad I stumbled on to them.
His side kick Temple Barr is learning how to defend herself by taking lessons from Matt Devine (she has a crush on him). And this time she is on the prowl at the Las Vegas Cat show when someone shaved one of the cats--in the shape of a cross. Matt gets involved when his old school teacher (a nun) calls him with a problem at the convent. Why call him?
Between Temple (trying to save the cats), Matt (problems at the convent), and Louie (finding out a lot of cats in trouble), will they help solve the mystery murder with Molina in charge?
These are great books for those cat people who love mysteries. I'm glad I stumbled on to them.
July 9, 2022
Midnight Louie meets a Birman cat that pronounces predictions. She insists the Louie must intervene to save hundreds of cats somewhere nearby. There happens to be another huge cat show in town, which seems an appropriate site to check out. ( By the way, the Birman cat definitely looks down on Louie’s background.) Meantime, Matt receives a telephone call from an ex-teacher who happens to be a nun. She is now in the same city as Matt, and has met an elderly lady with a house stuffed full of cats, right near the show.
September 7, 2017
This cat just gets better and better!
I was late in finding these books by about 20 years, but they are so good! The action is quick and Douglas' writing impeccable. I am a little upset by the attitude toward the Catholic church (I am a very devout Catholic and this book was full of quite a bit of misinformation) but I can forgive that because this cat has me hooked!
I was late in finding these books by about 20 years, but they are so good! The action is quick and Douglas' writing impeccable. I am a little upset by the attitude toward the Catholic church (I am a very devout Catholic and this book was full of quite a bit of misinformation) but I can forgive that because this cat has me hooked!
August 6, 2017
This story of murder and mayhem takes place at the annual Cat Show. People are killed, animals are in peril, and it is up to Midnight Louie, his red-headed roomie, Temple Barr, and their friends and cohorts, to solve the many mysteries.
August 27, 2018
Midnight Louie never ceases to entertain. The added i trigue about Max and the unearthing of Matt's past has added to the thrill.
June 26, 2019
Rather dark - but love the characters and this series.
October 7, 2021
Life had me lose focus in reading is why it took so long to read. Love the characters & mystery. And reading from a feline point of view…entertaining!
October 7, 2021
Took a bit to read this one, but the road of life had be a bit unfocused to reading. Love the perspective of the felines. Loved all the characters & mystery.. good who done it!
March 31, 2020
Ok, I lied, I just can't finish this! I can't even get past the third chapter!
Update 3/27/20: I picked this book back up. I just can't stand to not finish a book. Slugged through another 7 or 8 chapters and the story started to become a little more interesting and half way through it was good enough for me to want to know how it ended.
Update 3/27/20: I picked this book back up. I just can't stand to not finish a book. Slugged through another 7 or 8 chapters and the story started to become a little more interesting and half way through it was good enough for me to want to know how it ended.
November 27, 2012
Midnight Louie is at it again. Temple Barr is asked to do some PR for the local cat show. Her neighbor, Matt Devine, is working at a hotline call center when he is contacted by an old school teacher of his to come to the convent at Our Lady of Guadalupe church. He is told that one of the nuns is receiving obscene phone calls. One of the elderly ladies in the neighborhood who provides shelter and food for up to 75 cats has also been receiving calls. She is hysterical and is taken to the hospital. Temple Barr finds one of the cats has been shaved at the cat show which takes away any chance of winning. The owner of the mutilated cat is also the niece of the woman who was taken to the hospital. She asks Temple to go and feed the cats for her aunt. This opens up up the whole mystery. Midnight Louie is around at all times. He comes to the cat show and wins best of breed. He finds the house of the elderly aunt and meets all the cats to find out who is the culprit. When the elderly woman is killed and her will leaves all of her money and assets to the church, Temple, Matt and the nuns need to find homes for all of the cats and to find out who the murderer is. I like this series. I like the way Louie "writes" his own story and combines that with the actions of Temple and her friends. Not a change the world mystery but one that is relaxing to read.
August 23, 2015
I was lamenting to a friend about there being no more Cat Who books since Lilian Jackson Braun's demise, and she told me about Carole Nelson Douglas's "Midnight Louie" books. This was completely different, but it's always fun reading from the cat's voice/perspective.
The first two in this series weren't in at the library, so I chose this one and thoroughly enjoyed it. It took a bit to get hold of the voice and character of the Midnight Louie-narrated parts, but, once I did, I found him to be a really cool cat in both senses of the term. Enjoyed all the twists and turns in the mysterious plot. I couldn't tell from this one whether the others in the series have the religious bent. I'm hoping not. From hints in this tale, I realize that a previous book had Temple Barr involved with an earlier, now mysteriously disappeared, boyfriend who was not involved with the Catholic church.
Fun to read.
The first two in this series weren't in at the library, so I chose this one and thoroughly enjoyed it. It took a bit to get hold of the voice and character of the Midnight Louie-narrated parts, but, once I did, I found him to be a really cool cat in both senses of the term. Enjoyed all the twists and turns in the mysterious plot. I couldn't tell from this one whether the others in the series have the religious bent. I'm hoping not. From hints in this tale, I realize that a previous book had Temple Barr involved with an earlier, now mysteriously disappeared, boyfriend who was not involved with the Catholic church.
Fun to read.
September 15, 2015
Cats And More Cats
A visit with Midnight Louie and pals. Temple is learning defensive actions. Louie meets Birman living in the Condo above them.. The Birman tells that large number of cats are in danger. Louie sets out to what she meant. He finds a cat show nearby and a Birman was shaved of its fur. More importantly is a group of rescue cats whose owner is being harassed by strange sounds and noise at night. Temple volunteers to help feed the cats. Matt's background is explained. This book has many turns to keep turning the pages. I was not able to figured out who was doing it until explain.
A visit with Midnight Louie and pals. Temple is learning defensive actions. Louie meets Birman living in the Condo above them.. The Birman tells that large number of cats are in danger. Louie sets out to what she meant. He finds a cat show nearby and a Birman was shaved of its fur. More importantly is a group of rescue cats whose owner is being harassed by strange sounds and noise at night. Temple volunteers to help feed the cats. Matt's background is explained. This book has many turns to keep turning the pages. I was not able to figured out who was doing it until explain.
August 3, 2011
Nearly everything I want to write about this book would be a spoiler, so I'll simply say that I loved it. There were just so many nuances that made me happy. The details about Matt's background, while I guessed at some of them, make me want to know the rest of the story - and I hope more is revealed in future books. I loved the comparison of Lt. Molina's garb with that of the nuns. The descriptions of the many different breeds of cats had me visualizing each and every one of them. And Louie...it's a good thing Ms. Nelson edits his contributions.
June 8, 2008
Another fun Midnight Louie mystery. The setting of the mystery for this one wasn't as fun to me as the first two, but we do find out more about Matt's past, and Midnight Louie gets to also confront a bit of his own past as well!
July 19, 2009
This was a particularly scary edge of your seat installment of this series. As a person who takes care of many cats that live outdoors, it scares me to think about such predators on the loose. This series is action packed and very addictive.
February 24, 2009
My used paperback copy from Powell's in Portland OR was signed by "Best Fishes" by the author--didn't notice that until I got it home to Milwaukee.
October 3, 2010
Liked this one much more than the first one. Now I guess I'll have to go find the second one!
March 31, 2011
convoluted adventure, guessed perp when first introduced
April 2, 2016
My Rating System:
* couldn't finish, ** wouldn't recommend, *** would recommend, **** would read again, have read again.
* couldn't finish, ** wouldn't recommend, *** would recommend, **** would read again, have read again.
Read
July 31, 2013great book
September 30, 2023
I loved this book like the first few. It has become my second favorite cat series.
Read
May 31, 2011Midnight Louie
July 13, 2016
Eh. I will pass on any more of the books in this series. This story dragged for me. Not a fan.
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