CATNAP

Why would the killer of detestable publisher Chester Royal, after dispatching him with a knitting needle at the American Booksellers' convention in Las Vegas, tag him with a note reading ``STET,'' and then, for good measure, kidnap a pair of cats, the corporate mascots of rival imprint Baker & Taylor? Clearly no-nonsense Lt. R. C. Molina, one unsympathetic female, isn't interested, so it's up to PR frontwoman Temple Barr, still smarting from the recent disappearance of her magician lover, to dig up the motive from Chester's client/victims and old friends (ha)—aided at crucial moments by Midnight Louie, a big black tomcat who fancies himself another Philip Marlowe but who writes (yes, those interpolated chapters are written in his voice) like a pulp novelist who's been force-fed a dictionary. Reassuringly predictable feminine flutters and detection (``I didn't expect to be found out,'' the killer obligingly announces on being unmasked)—but Midnight Louie adds a fatal dose of the cutes. Douglas (Good Night, Irene, 1991, etc.) is already at work on a sequel that should appeal to cats everywhere.