Rating: 
Summary: Acceptable, not stunning
Review: With this fourteenth addition to its ranks, the Midnight Louie series continues to do what it has been doing since about book five: chug along reliably through the soap opera that is the major characters' lives, providing a mixture of cat's-eye-view detection, human foibles, and trendy pop psychology to make an amusing afternoon's read. By this point the ongoing saga far overrides any individual book's plot, so if you haven't read any of the series I wouldn't recommend starting here; there's just too much backstory to catch up on. _Cat in a Midnight Choir_ is very obviously a single chapter in what is essentially a serial melodrama. It doesn't stand alone.Followers of Midnight Louie and Co.'s exploits will be relieved to know that one significant plot thread is resolved here, so there is a sense of resolution that has been missing from the series since the letter "J" or so. But we're only halfway through, so don't go looking for any of the really major mysteries to be resolved. If you're impatient to know the whole truth, "Midnight Choir" may only make you more so. I, for one, am also getting a little tired of certain characters' attitudes. Much of the plot seems to hinge upon characters' not communicating and then justifying the lack of communication to themselves somehow. I find this irritating. Also on the negative side, the non-human cast of characters has grown to a degree that makes it hard even for this reader to suspend her disbelief at key moments. The denoument of "Midnight Choir," far from being thrilling, had me laughing at the excess of feline presence. I rather don't think this is quite what the author intended. On the plus side, Douglas once again serves up a detailed view of Las Vegas and its unique character, sprinkled with people who are genuinely complex and human. I liked "Midnight Choir" far better than _Cat in a Leopard Spot_ (the last installment), but not quite as well as some of the more self-contained, earlier volumes. Fans will want to read this one.
| 
