Bøger af Carole Nelson Douglas

AWARD-WINNING STORIES from USA TODAY bestselling author Carole Nelson Douglas, featuring mystery icons Sam Spade and Edgar Allan Poe. Interior illustrations designed by the author. Noir urban fantasy paranormal investigator Delilah Street and iconic contemporary feline sleuth Midnight Louie team up for a trio of tales, including one based on an Edgar Allan Poe story fragment found after his death. From Sam Spade's "black bird"--the priceless Maltese Falcon--to Poe's "The Raven," Louie and Delilah keep up with their noted detective forebears. Stories published previously in anthologies are collected here for the first time: "Bogieman" from Unusual Suspects; "Butterfly Kiss" from The Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance 2; "The Riches That There Lie" from Poe's Lighthouse.

Temple Barr and Matt Devine make a cozy engaged couple, and the feisty redhead is all for her handsome radio host fiance staring in a week-long televised Las Vegas charity event, "Dancing with the Celebs." But while ex-priest Matt struggles to master the sexy moves of the tango, a killer stalks the dance floor. Not only is Matt in danger, but so is the lovely tween Mariah, daughter of homicide cop C. R. Molina, who is dancing in the Junior Divison of the show. And so Temple gets dragooned into resurrecting her kicky teen persona, Zoe Chloe Ozone, now an Internet hottie, to ensure Matt and Mariah don't foxtrot into a fatal mistep. Where is Louie in all this? Well, he's out and about, proving that he's still the cat's meow. But he's got his paws full as he tries to keep all the various players in his little troupe from dancing right into death's arms....

Cat in a Sapphire Slipper is the twentieth title in Carole Nelson Douglas's sassy Midnight Louie mystery series. The tough-talking, twenty-pound, tomcat PI is as feisty as ever as he and his gang try to keep his favorite roommate from losing her man.PR honcho Temple Barr's romance novelist aunt Kit has wound up in a romantic plot of her own. She's snagged one of the most eligible bachelors on the Strip, one of the elder Fontana brothers, a silver-tongued reputed ex-mobster with a heart of gold. There is to be a wedding...and where there is a wedding there is usually a bachelor party. Things go disastrously wrong when the entire party is hijacked and taken to a remote ranch out in the Nevada desert, a place where the women are wild and the sex is legal. And among the group? None other than Temple's own Matt, an ex-priest. Truly a fish out of water, he soon comes upon a beautiful young woman who is quite naked and most thoroughly dead. Given the remoteness of the location with very few suspects on hand (plus the Fontanas' shady reputation) this could be a very bad thing indeed. And Louie? Well, he managed to go along for the ride and once again it's up to that big old tomcat to bail out his humans and save the day.Cat in a Sapphire Slipper is a fast-paced, racy mystery with a loveable cast of characters and one terrific tough dude to keep them all in line.

Temple Barr, publicist extraordinaire, is itching to bring off her most dangerous and exciting assignment, helping to launch an endeavor that many a Vegas showmen have dreamed of: a Las Vegas mob museum/casino. While city powers-that-be hem and haw over doing an official project on the subject, the Family Fontana plans to connect two hotels with a "Chunnel of Crime" featuring an underground speakeasy, a fast "ride" through Vegas crime history by Gangsters custom limo sevice, and other fun attractions. Temple's grand scheme to do a live "opening Bugsy Siegel's vault" media event built around a huge safe found buried underground produces a two-day-old body wearing white tie and tails. With Temple's magician-counterterrorist ex-lover, Max, gone missing and her new fiance, radio shrink Matt Devine, in Chicago for week-long media gig, Temple must depend on "the Vegas Strip Irregulars," a posse of cats, to solve murders old and new that smack of mobs vintage and all too contemporary. Success, or failure, could cost Temple her life, and all nine of Louie's.

Zombies and Witches and Vamps . . . Oh, My! What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas—at least that’s Delilah Street’s hope. With Sin City’s vampire and werewolf mobs wanting to cash in her chips once and for all, she’s retreating with her partner Ric Montoya and half-wolfhound Quicksilver to her Kansas birthplace. Unfortunately, when it comes to finding trouble, there’s no place like home. . . . It doesn’t take long before Delilah realizes she’s not in Vegas anymore. Zombie cowboys and spectral cattle drives are kicking up dust, the local weather girls are total witches who forecast perfect storms, and some Hollywood fanatic is recasting zombies as the greatest stars of the silver screen. And speaking of silver, Delilah’s special affinity for the all-purpose monster-repellent leads her posse straight down a silver brick road—and into a notso- fun house of mirrors—putting her face-to-face with her dicey past and a mystery woman named Lilith, who’s a real dead ringer for Delilah. The key word being dead.

"Paranormal investigator Delilah Street-- in her quest to identify the long-buried embracing skeletons she and sexy ex-FBI agent Ricardo Montoya discovered-- has to deal with a lecherous vampire, a ghoulish producer, celebrity zombies from classic films, a mysterious albino rock star who bestows addictive kisses on his groupies, and a dead girl in her mirror-- and those are just her clients! After the Millennium Revelation, Las Vegas is teeming with supernaturals and run by a werewolf mob, but even the unhumans can't conceive of what Delilah discovers hidden under the city's damnable desert sands: an unspeakably powerful evil rooted in ancient Egypt..."--Cover page [4].

"Delilah Street is a survivor. With her life in Wichita, Kansas literally in ruins, she leaves her job as a TV reporter on the small-town bogeyman beat and heads for high-octane Las Vegas... in search of the answer to a bizarre mystery. Why did a corpse on the latest crime-scene reality show look exactly like her? In a city run by a werewolf mob, where an aged millionaire vampire skulks in a deserted hotel and illegal traffic in celebrity zombies has gone viral, Delilah's questions are soon uncovering dangerous answers. Her new allies, ex-FBI cadaver dowser Ric Montoya and a big, bad wolfhound called Quicksilver, have her back, but they may not be enough. With half of Vegas seemingly determined to make a corpse out of her, as well, can Delilah uncover the truth in time?"--Cover page [4].

The ever-irresistible Irene Adler, her dashing barrister husband, Godfrey Norton, and the indomitable Miss Nell Huxleigh have arrived at last as their French cottage-having survived dastardly plots, Russian spies, pistol-wielding criminals, and the occasional cobra. The happy trio seeks nothing but rest and peace-but Irene has always chafed under idle conditions, and Paris, she says, "is pretty and urbane, but hardly a center of excitement." So when Charles Frederick Worth, the Parisian king of couture, invites Irene to become his "mannequin de ville," to wear the fabulous Worth creations to stimulate his trade, Irene leaps at the chance.But what was a joyous lark soon turns into a journey that can lead to disgrace, dishonor, and death when Irene, Nell, and Godfrey are drawn into a series of events that will compel Irene to the one place that she daren't go and the one man she must not confront: Prague and the King of Bohemia.

Irene Adler is the beautiful opera singer who bested the best detective in the world, the only woman to ever outwit Sherlock Holmes. She has spent years in self-imposed exile in Europe, in an attempt to reinvent herself and create a new life, because she cannot remember the old one. But now circumstances have forced this diva-turned-detective to investigate a past she doesn''t remember--on her home ground. Daredevil reporter Nelly Bly has lured Irene, her faithful chronicler and British parson''s daughter Nell Huxleigh, and Holmes himself to America, offering information regarding Irene''s parentage. New York City in 1889 proved to be both fascinating and perilous for Irene, and Nelly Bly''s information was more harmful than helpful. Because now Irene and her allies--and enemies--must race to follow a deadly trail of hidden personal and political history back in time to the days of the California gold rush, thirty years earlier. They are pursuing the complex and contradictory life story of one of the most notorious women of the nineteenth century, and before the intrigue-ridden quest is over, Irene and Nell will uncover murderous international political conspiracies, lost treasure, and finally... the full, shocking secret of Irene''s birth.

In Cat in a Midnight Choir, the fourteenth Midnight Louie Mystery, both feline and human evil-doers and crime-solvers work overtime to make Las Vegas the Capital of Noir Suspense. This time our feisty black cat detective is hunting a mysterious and possibly murderous organization of renegade magicians called the Synth, which has been making Las Vegas too hot to hold for some of Louie's human friends, particularly ex-magician Max Kinsella. Louie's on the case . . . but the trick may be on him this time. And just to make things interesting, while Louie and his furred cohorts battle black magic, both human and not-so-human, Louie's cherished roommate, plucky PR freelancer Temple Barr, is investigating the murderous side of the Synth despite the intense discouragement of female homicide lieutenant C. R. Molina. Molina herself is secretly moonlighting as an undercover operative to nail the killer of a sad, young stripper, and the search has boiled down to two suspects: Temple's current significant other, Max Kinsella, and Molina's long-gone ex-lover, Raf Nadir. Unfortunately, proving either man guilty will seriously impact the lives of Molina and her daughter, Mariah. As Louie and his human friends sink deeper into a lose-lose situation of crime and punishment, there doesn't seem to be any way out of this escalating crisis, except another murder.Can Louie solve some nagging past mysteries, find out just what some mad magicians have in store and stop the stripper killer before he claims another victim? And what will Louie do if he finds that the killer is someone Louie knows . . . and likes?

Winner of the American Mystery Award for Best Novel of Romantic Suspense, and the Romantic Times Award for Best Historical MysteryMiss Irene Adler, the beautiful American opera singer who once outwitted Sherlock Holmes, is also a superb detective, as Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker can attest. Even Holmes himself must admit--albeit grudgingly--that she acquits herself competently. But in matters of the heart she encounters difficulty. The Crown Prince of Bohemia--tall, blonde, and handsome--proves to be a cad. Will dashing barrister Godfrey Norton be able to convince Irene that not all handsome men are cut from the same broadcloth?