Alice Nestleton, cat sitter and off and way off, Broadway theater actress, has received word from her agent of an interview at a top hat Tribeca Chinese restaurant with a Hollywood movie producer. Maybe this is Hollywood beckoning and her acting career really taking off, finally.

Before any serious discussion takes place, or any serious food is ordered, mayhem strikes. Alice spots a beautiful red tabby sitting up high on a shelf, and the three thugs that have entered the restaurant with weapons and spray cans, ready to wreak havoc. So much for career advancement. Instead, Alice finds herself on the hunt for the red tabby that has disappeared, and involved with a young, handsome, Mandarin speaking NYPD cop who is out to solve the mystery of the mayhem and the murderer of the waitress who was killed during it.

A plot that runs at a good pace, a cast of characters coming from the Chinese culture, the theater of Alice's past and present, and some clues that just don't want to come together all make for an enjoyable and fun read. ( )

I read most of this novel while snuggling with my own super-furry Maine coon cat, which set the right mood, for sure. This is a cute murder mystery, in which Alice, a beautiful blonde actress who likes solving crimes, happens to be in a Chinese restaurant when it is shot up by odd Chinese gangsters who spray paint the Chinese character for 'soup' on the wall and shoot one of the waitresses. Alice tries not to become any more involved than she already is, but she is worried about the orange cat she saw in the restaurant just before the shooting. No one seems to know or care what happened to the cat, so Alice starts investigating, mostly just to be sure the cat is ok.

I had issues with the young half-Chinese investigator, Sonny, who Alice gets involved with- he seems so psychotically unbalanced that I had a hard time imagining Alice could like him, let alone want to sleep with him. However, I loved the plotting Alice does that just happens to provide a cushy home for a bedraggled shelter cat. The problems I had with Sonny dropped my rating for this book, because he is such a dominant character that his unprofessionalism and domineering manner towards Alice made a lot of scenes hard to believe. ( )