Кэрол Дуглас - Cat In A White Tie And Tails

Eleven years later, when I left my union-guaranteed-for-life newspaper job (remember those?) to write fiction freelance, that feline “voice” revisited me and demanded a cameo role in four Las Vegas–set short romances (with mystery). The editor happily bought the quartet, then cut much of the mystery and Louie out, without telling me.

I told you nine lives were not enough for this canny feline survivor. Midnight Louie did an athletic flip-flop, landing on his feet in a mystery series bearing his name that featured any ongoing human romance elements in their proper place, as subplot.

In 1996, the series publisher, Tor Books, sponsored a wonderful Midnight Louie Adopt-a-Cat tour that brought me and homeless cats to adoption/book-signing events in every region of the country. They started in my new home state, Texas, with multi-city events. And, new to the animal rescue scene, the publicists didn’t know about no-kill shelters and “booked” me into the main city shelters.

I had six rescue cats and a rescue dog at home, but I saw so many, many beautiful kittens and cats, so many cats only a year old and kicked out, at stop after stop, it was heartbreaking.

When a small black cat in the open colony at Lubbock Animal Services looked up at me and “skritched,” I bent to pick it up. Midnight Louie Jr. had me on hello. There’s more to the story, but it wasn’t until three weeks later my husband and I drove almost seven hundred miles round trip to fetch our seventh cat.

We stayed overnight at a nice motel and came back to the room after dinner. I have never seen a cat so aware that he’d found a home, and so happy, not anxious at all. He jumped on the bed when we retired and moved back and forth on our chests all night, purring and meowing until he was hoarse by morning and we were sleepless in Lubbock.

He wasn’t very big, his coat was dull, and his tail had been broken in two places so he couldn’t lift it higher than a croquet-hoop position.

Long black hair turned glossy, and his tail did lift again, the mysterious break hidden. A short mystery story, “Junior Partner in Crime,” is my imagination of how he might have got in that condition following in Senior’s fictional crime-fighting footsteps.

Since there is only one “real and original” and eternal Midnight Louie, he became, after a brief detour as “Midnight Louise” (sometimes it’s hard to tell in busy shelters), the Midnight Louie Jr. seen with me in the dust jacket photograph.

After fifteen years, he was called to the Rainbow Bridge as I was finishing this book. He fought hard not to leave, and he did not go alone.

Xanadu, his longtime pal and the chow-husky cross pup I’d found on the street four months before meeting Louie Jr., had a massive seizure the very morning we were about to call the vet for Midnight Louie Jr.’s last appointment.

He may not have been “the real and original,” but he was the best and the brightest in our lives for a long time and will never leave, not really.

By Carole Nelson Douglas from Tom Doherty Associates

MYSTERY

MIDNIGHT LOUIE MYSTERIES

Catnap

Pussyfoot

Cat on a Blue Monday

Cat in a Crimson Haze

Cat in a Diamond Dazzle

Cat with an Emerald Eye

Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

Cat in a Golden Garland

Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt

Cat in an Indigo Mood

Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit

Cat in a Kiwi Con

Cat in a Leopard Spot

Cat in a Midnight Choir

Cat in a Neon Nightmare

Cat in an Orange Twist

Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit

Cat in a Quicksilver Caper

Cat in a Red Hot Rage

Cat in a Sapphire Slipper

Cat in a Topaz Tango

Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme

Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta

Cat in a White Tie and Tails

Midnight Louie’s Pet Detectives

(anthology)

IRENE ADLER ADVENTURES

Good Night, Mr. Holmes

The Adventuress *

(Good Morning, Irene)

A Soul of Steel *

(Irene at Large)

Another Scandal in Bohemia *

(Irene’s Last Waltz)

Chapel Noir

Castle Rouge

Femme Fatale

Spider Dance

Marilyn: Shades of Blonde

(anthology)

HISTORICAL ROMANCE

Amberleigh †

Lady Rogue †

Fair Wind, Fiery Star

SCIENCE FICTION

Probe †

Counterprobe †

FANTASY

TALISWOMAN

Cup of Clay

Seed Upon the Wind

SWORD AND CIRCLET

Six of Swords

Exiles of the Rynth

Keepers of Edanvant

Heir of Rengarth

Seven of Swords

* These are the reissued editions.

† Also mystery

About the Author

Cat in a White Tie and Tails is the twenty-fourth title in CAROLE NELSON DOUGLAS’s sassy Midnight Louie mystery series. Previous titles include Cat in a Vegas Gold Vendetta, Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme, and Cat in a Topaz Tango . In addition to tales of her favorite feline, Douglas is also the author of the historical suspense series featuring Irene Adler, the only woman ever to have “outwitted” Sherlock Holmes. Douglas resides in Fort Worth, Texas. Visit her Web site at www.carolenelsondouglas.com.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

CAT IN A WHITE TIE AND TAILS

Copyright © 2012 by Carole Nelson Douglas

Cover art by Jo Tronc

Hand lettering by Iskra Johnson

All rights reserved.

A Forge Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 978-0-7653-2747-5 (hardcover)

ISBN 9781429948272 (e-book)

First Edition: August 2012