Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

It's amore for Midnight Louie, coolest cat in Las Vegas, as he continues to court the Divine Yvette, a beautiful Siamese, and ends up solving a murder at the G.R.O.W.L.--Great Readers of Wonderful Literature--convention of romance writers. Louie's human companion, freelance publicist Temple Barr, is hardly in the mood for romance. Mystifying Max, her erstwhile boyfriend, has reappeared and complicated her budding relationship with Matt Devine, an indecisive former priest. The attentions of super-hunk Fabrizio, who enjoys literally picking up the diminutive Temple, annoy her further. But she's determined to win the contest to find the pair of high-heeled shoes decorated with crystal cats--Midnight Louie shoes, she calls them--hidden somewhere in one of the hotels. When one of the male models assembled for the convention's Incredible Hunks pageant is murdered during a dress rehearsal, Temple's instinct for snooping goes into high gear, putting her own life in jeopardy. But Louie saves the day again, drawing on his linguistic skills--in this case, pigeon-English--to prove whodunit. While her prose and plotting are sometimes overwrought, Douglas (Cat in a Crimson Haze) tells her tale with such good humor that readers are likely to forgive her the occasional excess. (May)