Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme — Carole Nelson Douglas

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.