Catymology

Snooping around is one of my favorite activities. Investigating here. Sniffing there. Maybe I should get a job as a Private Investigator? Like Midnight Louie. I was interested to see that there’s a new book about Louie out now: Cat in a Quicksilver Caper .

Louie is described as a hardboiled PI. I’d call him the Bruce Willis of cats. His human, Temple Barr, works in PR in Las Vegas, a city where crimes are as plentiful as mice in a corncrib. In this installment of Louie’s adventures, he tangles with art thieves, Russian mafiosa, and Chechen rebels--not to mention a curare-nailed performing Siamese cat, Hyacinth. I wonder whether Darcy X has a shot at playing Hyacinth in the movie version? Other than the guy-girl thing, Darcy is exactly the right type.

Here's a little taste of how Louie and Temple get along. Temple is just waking up.

Because all morning-afters have their down as well as their up sides, and Temple was starting to see that. It didn’t help that Midnight Louie, all fully furred twenty pounds of him, was sitting on her chest like a guilty conscience, staring at her with unblinking feline-green eyes.

His mesmerizing eyes and shiny black hair reminded her that she was betrothed (as much as you could be in a modern world) to raven-haired Max Kinsella, a magician on hiatus. Louie’s watchful presence also reminded her that Louie had been on patrol in the apartment early this morning when she’d returned from her supposedly bland dinner date with neighbor Matt Devine, during which certain overly neighborly things had occurred and mention had been made of the M-word: marriage.

Louie knew. Somehow.

And that gloriously green stare said that he understood every miserable nuance of her now hopelessly complicated love life. And that he did not approve.

The author, Carole Nelson Douglas, spoke recently in my home town, and amanuensis took notes. Apparently, some editors and critics think her work is too erudite, with its references to literature and mythology and a style that’s crisp and slyly satirical. Nonsense, I say. Every cat deserves to have a good vocabulary and a wide range of cultural reference points. Louie’s got that nailed.

More about Louie and his past adventures is on Douglas' website.

Louie, I hope you'll board the Friday Ark at Modulator tomorrow. Then, Sunday's Carnival of the Cats will be at For the Junta; and while you're there, check out the Russian cats!

Tags: catymology cats Book Reviews