"Wild, wacky Midnight Louie roller coaster ride"

Life has been quiet for public relation specialist Temple Barr for the last few weeks. She has not been involved in any homicide investigations, nobody she knows has been involved in a crime, and Max Kinsella disappeared from her life again. She is unaware that the former magician is working with his former mentor Gary Gandalf in order to infiltrate the Synth, a cabal of magicians with a secret agenda that threatens world peace.

Temple is the PA maven for Maylords Furniture opening and she is coordinating feng shui mover Amelia Wong's appearance at the grand opening. The event is ruined when someone starts shooting and the lights go out. Nobody has a clue who the intended victim was but a couple of days later, Simon, one of the decorators, is killed. His lover is Temple's friend so she is determined to bring the killer to justice. Not long after that homicide, the manager from hell is killed and Temple cannot figure out how the two murders connect until her fabulous homicide solving feline Midnight Louie gets involved.

Carole Nelson Douglas takes the Midnight Louie series to a new dimension. Matt declares his feelings for Temple and even acts on them; Max is keeping his distance from Temple so he does put her in danger and Temple teams up With Rafi Nader, Molina's ex-lover and the father of her child, to bring the guilty to justice. The heroine discovers that Rafi is not as dark as Lieutenant Molina paints him and she is thinking as much about Matt as she is about Max. CAT IN AN ORANGE TWIST is another wild, wacky Midnight Louie roller coaster ride.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted August 9, 2004

Summary

Temple Barr is a sharp and sassy public relations ace in Las Vegas whose life is finally taking a turn for the better. Hard-nosed homicide lieutenant Carmen Molina is too busy chasing after her own ex-lover, rogue L.A. cop Rafi Nadir, to pursue Temple's boyfriend, sexy magician Max Kinsella, and nobody Temple knows has been murdered... at least, not in the past few weeks. Temple takes this downtime as a signal she should buy a new pair of Jimmy Choo spike heels, and accept the job of planning a glitzy week of opening events for a trendy new furniture showroom. Dealing with temperamental décor mavens is no problem for a woman who's saved leopards from big game hunters, tracked killers through strip clubs, calmed the cantankerous owners of Las Vegas's most glamorous hotel, and seen the ghost of Elvis-until the life of feng shui expert and media-crowned domestic dominatrix Amelia Wong is threatened. Suddenly Temple is neck deep in trouble... and bodies. And Temple has one more problem-one she doesn't even know about: her roommate Louie, and his maybe-daughter Louise, have decided to make sure that Temple's search for a killer furniture arrangement doesn't mean curtains for her. Midnight Inc. Investigations, their PI firm, is on the case. The catch? Louie is Temple's cat.