Midnight Louie & Co. are tangled up in feather boas and red hats when murder ensues at a Red Hat convention.

Cat in a Red Hot Rage is the nineteenth title in Carole Nelson Douglas's sassy Midnight Louie mystery series. This tough talking twenty-pound tomcat PI is playing at the top of his game as he walks the walk and talks the talk on the mean streets of Las Vegas. Temple Barr and Midnight Louie are up to their tails in froufrou, chapeaux, and murder when the Red Hat Sisterhood convention hits Las Vegas. Electra Lark, Temple's spirited landlady, has dragged her to the con. Accused of murder after a woman is found strangled with an official Red Hat Sisterhood scarf, Electra begs Temple to clear her name by posing as a pink-hatter, an under-fifty member of the organization. Louie and his partner in Midnight Investigations Inc., Midnight Louise, join the hunt for the killer at the Crystal Phoenix. They find old friends already there, including C-movie actress Savannah Ashleigh, and her Persian cats, Louie's ex-love, the Divine Yvette, and her sister Solange. As Temple and Louie dig under all the makeup and shopping bags it becomes clear that a whole lot of folks want to crush or cash in on the red-hot rage of female empowerment that is the Red Hat Sisterhood. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Like other fictional characters, female sleuths may live in the past or the future. They may represent current times with some level of reality or shape their settings to suit an agenda. There are audiences for both realism and escapism in the mystery novel. It is interesting, however, to compare the fictional world of the mystery sleuth with the world in which readers live. Of course, mystery readers do not share one simplistic world. They live in urban, suburban, and rural areas, as do the female heroines in the books they read. They may choose a book because it has a familiar background or because it takes them to places they long to visit. Readers may be rich or poor; young or old; conservative or liberal. So are the heroines. What incredible choices there are today in mystery series! This three-volume encyclopedia of women characters in the mystery novel is like a gigantic menu. Like a menu, the descriptions of the items that are provided are subjective. Volume 3 of Mystery Women as currently updated adds an additional 42 sleuths to the 500 plus who were covered in the initial Volume 3. These are more recently discovered sleuths who were introduced during the period from January 1, 1990 to December 31, 1999. This more than doubles the number of sleuths introduced in the 1980s (298 of whom were covered in Volume 2) and easily exceeded the 347 series (and some outstanding individuals) described in Volume 1, which covered a 130-year period from 1860-1979. It also includes updates on those individuals covered in the first edition; changes in status, short reviews of books published since the first edition through December 31, 2008.

Provide your mystery fans with background information on their favorite writers and series characters, and use this as a guide for adding contemporary titles to your collections. This book examines 100 of today's top mystery novels and mystery authors hailing from countries such as the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, South Africa, and Australia. Equally valuable to students writing research papers, readers craving new authors or more information about their favorite authors, and teachers seeking specific types of fiction to support curricula, 100 Most Popular Contemporary Mystery Authors: Biographical Sketches and Bibliographies provides revealing information about today's best mysteries and authors—without any "spoilers." Each of the accomplished writers included in this guide has established a broad audience and is recognized for work that is imaginative and innovative. The rising stars of 21st century mystery will also be included, as will authors who have won the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award.