Cat Crimes 3

This third anthology of stories featuring felines in crime--whether as catalyst, criminal or sleuth--will surely hook the cat-loving audience that lapped up the series's two previous volumes. A cat stars as both victim and clue as a TV producer untangles an old crime in the bayous of Louisiana in William L. DeAndrea's ``Killed in Midstream.'' In ``Fat Cat,'' Nancy Pickard's unusual detective is an animal shelter manager who wonders why so many good-looking, pedigreed cats are disappearing from his small Colorado town. The cat in DeLoris Stanton Forbes's ``Dumb Animals'' tries to get rid of her rival, a dog; in ``A Few Strokes for Mitzi,'' Herbert Resnicow tells of an art restorer who takes insidious revenge for the death of her longtime companion; and a pool-playing cat named Eight Ball gives a waitress a chance for a new life in ``Leaving Cornucopia'' by D. C. Brod. Noted mystery anthologists Greenberg and Gorman deliver a diverting collection, even for readers indifferent to cats. (Dec.)