Cat on a Cold Tin Roof

June 16, 2014
With no email, GPS, or cell phone, Eli Paxton is, as they say, doin’ it old school in Resnick’s entertaining third mystery featuring the tenacious Cincinnati, Ohio, PI and ex-cop (after 2013’s The Trojan Colt). Jim Simmons, a cop buddy of Eli’s, figures the police can handle the murder of wealthy Malcolm Pepperidge (formerly Big Jim Palanto), “the financial adviser to Chicago’s biggest Mafia family.” But Pepperidge’s widow, according to Jim, wants a private detective to track the victim’s cat, Fluffy, who fled the crime scene wearing a collar studded with diamonds worth millions. When Eli finds Fluffy—sans collar—the grieving widow all but tosses the feline to the hounds. That’s when a little game of cat-and, er, louse gets serious, with the involvement of Bolivian drug lords. Good times ensue for fans of Cincinnati or old-school PI yarns or both. Agent: Eleanor Wood, Spectrum Literary Agency.

July 15, 2014
Cincinnati private eye Eli Paxton (TheTrojan Colt, 2013, etc.)and his West Highland white terrier, Marlowe, get hired to find a cat worth alot more than your cat.Yes, yes, someone definitely didshoot Malcolm Pepperidge to death while he was taking advantage of a break in alate-night snowstorm to check out the stars from a telescope on his balcony.And since Pepperidge used to be Big Jim Palanto, financial adviser to theChicago Mafia, whose retirement 15 years ago didn't stop the police fromrecently inviting him to testify against his old intimates, there's no shortageof suspects for the police to worry about. But as grieving widow EvangelinePepperidge, formerly Velma Palanto, tells Eli, "Forget him!...Just find thefucking cat!" It seems that her beloved Fluffy ran off during the kerfuffle, and she'll be inconsolable until her return. Or even after, as Eli realizeswhen his inquiries among local animal shelters disclose Fluffy's whereaboutsand he restores her to her distraught owner, only to be clapped in jail becausethe sorely missed feline is minus a bejeweled collar worth $10 million, or $1million, or $100,000, depending whom you believe. Eli doesn't own a GPS or acellphone or a computer, but he knows how to make a deal, and in the course ofthis waggish, low-energy adventure, he strikes up ad hoc partnerships with hislandlady, Ms. Cominsky; with Lt. Jim Simmons, of the Cincinnati Police; withVal Sorrentino, of the Chicago Mafia; with a trio of Bolivian gunmen who arejust as interested in that cat collar as he is; and with several obligingjewelers, the most obliging of whom gets shot for his troubles.Veteran Resnick provides smilesinstead of laughs, vague bewilderment instead of mystery, and very limiteddoses of mostly offstage action. The results are guaranteed to keep your bloodpressure well under control.

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July 1, 2014

Cincinnati's sarcastic PI is back in his third engrossing animal-related case (after The Trojan Colt). A simple missing-cat case turns deadly when a Bolivian drug cartel moves on the scene.

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