Cat in a hot pink Pursuit

Midnight Louie’s
    Lives and Times...

    How sad that my singing voice is more scat than lyrics, for my personal theme song would have to be “There Is Nothing Like a Dame.”
    I admit it. I am a shameless admirer of the female of the species. Any species. Of course not all females are dames. Some are little dolls, like my petite roommate, Miss Temple Barr.
    The difference between dames and little dolls? Dames can take care of themselves, period. Little dolls can take care of themselves also, but they are not averse to letting the male of the species think that they have an occasional role in the Master Plan too.
    That is why my Miss Temple and I are perfect roomies. She tolerates my wandering ways. I make myself useful, looking after her without letting her know about it. Call me Muscle in Midnight Black. In our time, we have co-cracked a few cases too tough for the local fuzz of the human persuasion, law enforcement division. That does not always win either of us popularity contests, but we would rather be right than on the sidelines when something crooked is going down. We share a well-honed sense of justice and long, sharp fingernails.
    So when I hear that a reality TV show is coming to Las Vegas to film, I figure that one way or another my lively little roommate, the petite and toothsome, will be spike-heel high in the planning and execution. She is, after all, a freelance public relations specialist, and Las Vegas is full of public relations of all stripes and legalities. In this case, though, I did not figure just how deeply she would be involved in murder most media.
    I should introduce myself: Midnight Louie, PI. I am not your usual gumshoe in that my feet do not wear shoes of any stripe, but shivs. I have certain attributes, such as being short, dark, and handsome... really short. That gets me overlooked and underestimated, which is what the savvy operative wants anyway. I am your perfect undercover guy. I also like to hunker down under the covers with my little doll. My adventures would fill a book, and in fact I have several out. My life is just one long TV miniseries in which I as hero extract my hapless human friends from fixes of their own making and literally nail crooks. After experiencing the dramatic turn of events recently, most of my human associates are pretty shell-shocked. Not even an ace feline PI may be abie to solve their various predicaments in the areas of crime and punishment... and PR, as in Personal Relationships.
    As a serial killer-finder in a multivolume mystery series (not to mention a primo mouthpiece), it behooves me to update my readers old and new on past crimes and present tensions.
    None can deny that the Las Vegas crime scene is a pretty busy place, and I have been treading these mean neon streets for seventeen books now. When I call myself an “alphacat,” some think I am merely asserting my natural male dominance, but no. I merely reference the fact that after debuting in Catnap and Pussyfoot, I commenced to a title sequence that is as sweet and simple as B to Z That is where I began my alphabet, with the B in Cat on a Blue Monday. From then on, the color word in the title is in alphabetical order up to the current volume, Cat in a Hot Pink Pursuit. (Yeow! Pink is not my usual macho color.)
    Since I associate with a multifarious and nefarious crew of human beings, and since Las Vegas is littered with guidebooks as well as bodies, I wish to provide a rundown of the local landmarks on my particular map of the world. A cast of characters, so to speak:
    To wit, my lovely roommate and high-heel devotee, Miss Nancy Drew on killer spikes, freelance PR ace MISS TEMPLE BARR, who has reunited with her only love...
    ... the once missing-in-action magician MR. MAX KINSELLA, who has good reason for invisibility. After his cousin SEAN died in a bomb attack during a post-high-school jaunt to Ireland, he went into undercover counterterrorism work with his mentor, GANDOLPH THE GREAT, whose unsolved murder last Halloween while unmasking phony psychics at a séance is still on the books....
    Meanwhile, Mr. Max is sought by another dame, Las Vegas homicide LIEUTENANT C. R. MOLINA, mother of pre-teen MARIAH...
    ... and the good friend of Miss Temple’s recent good friend MR. MATT DEVINE, a radio talk-show shrink and former Roman Catholic priest who came to Las Vegas to track down his abusive stepfather, now dead and buried. By whose hand, no one is quite sure.
    Speaking of unhappy pasts,