Cat Crimes Takes a Vacation

The sixth edition of this popular anthology takes off for exotic locales, with more than enough satisfying cat tales to offset the couple of dogs that come along for the ride. Barbara Paul's ``Midnight Sun'' offers a Ten Little Indians-like murder in a remote medieval Norwegian tourist site. An unpleasant, long-suffering wife does in her even longer-suffering hubby in Bali, only to have her plans undone by a cat in Gillian Roberts's ``The Shrine of Eleanor.'' Michael Collins sets ``The Chocolate Cat'' in the Tyrolean Alps, where he deftly combines a seemingly impossible murder, suspense and romance, while the feline spokesperson for Pretty Kitty cat food goes on location in Catherine Dain's ``Here Today, Dead to Maui.'' In ``The Cat, the Watch and the Deep Blue Sea,'' Bruce Holland Rogers offers fully realized characters in a tale of a manipulative grandfather who takes his heirs on a strings-attached cruise. Despite a few less worthy entries, Cat Crimes continues with enough lively antics to keep readers happily padding back for more. (July)