"riveting amateur sleuth"

In Las Vegas, anything goes and usually does. A new reality show is coming to town Teen Idol, a program that involves teens competing in two age groups to become queens of their respective divisions can be picked. Unknown to Lieutenant Carmen Molina of the Las Vegas Police Department, her daughter Mariah entered the teen competition and made the cut. Molina reluctantly allows her daughter to go for the two weeks in house event but worries because someone is mutilating the advertising posters and a girl was killed on the site where the audition occurred.

Molina asks Temple Barr to go undercover and enter the contest as a teen so she can watch over Mariah; she agrees because Max is nowhere around and hasn't been in quite some time. Her friend Matt is in Chicago looking for some clue that will lead him to the identity of his biological father. A serious of mischievous threats culminates in the murder of the contest's dietician. Temple with the help of her feline companion Midnight Louis investigates to stop the killer from murdering others.

Carole Nelson Douglas always keeps her series fresh by taking her characters in different directions and CAT IN A HOT PINK PURSUIT is no exception. For long time fans, secrets are finally revealed and the heroine makes a life alternating decision. The story is told in the third person point of view except when Midnight Louis is on stage and he gives his first hand perspective. This writing technique is deftly handled by Ms. Douglas so that this charming and entertaining mystery is a must read for people who like creative and riveting amateur sleuth tales told mostly by one with a tail.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted April 8, 2005

Summary

Ace freelance PR woman and amateur detective Temple Barr is 30-going-on-19 when she agrees to do homicide lieutenant Carmen Molina a big favor and go undercover as a contestant at Teen Idol, a TV reality show. The lieutenant is worried because someone is threatening the contestants--including her own 13 year old daughter--by leaving mutilated Barbie dolls all over Las Vegas.

Reliving the years of melodrama and teen angst while acting as a nanny-cum-diversion is bad enough, but Temple is dismayed to discover her professional nemesis is in charge of PR for Teen Idol-and, even worse, her romance novelist aunt has flown in from New York to be a judge. Can redheaded Temple fool her nearest and least dearest with a black dye job to complement her new punk persona, Xoë Chloë Ozone?

Temple is on her own among 28 unnatural blonds, who all say they'd kill to make the final cut and be named Teen Idol Queen... and one of them might actually do it. Usually Temple has an ace or two up her sleeve, but Max Kinsella, Temple's ex-magician boyfriend, is AWOL plotting to infiltrate a sinister cabal of terrorist magicians, and neighbor-slash-sometime love interest Matt Devine is in Chicago, tracking down his shocking family roots.

Luckily, there's one one alpha male Temple can always lean on: Midnight Louie, her black alley-cat roommate. Louie is already on the case, ensuring that all the "little dolls" under his care debut on national TV as more than lovely corpses.