…if you want to continue a series for a long time, as I knew I wanted to do with Midnight Louie because he is such a marvelous vehicle for social satire, you require characters and situations that are complicated enough to bear delving into more deeply.

Crescent Blues: Aside from Louie, which character arouses the most intense feelings from readers? Why?

Carole Nelson Douglas: That's a big "aside." Readers adore Louie, politically incorrect rascal that he is. Matt and Max, the two male human leads, draw the most reader comment, because readers are divided on which one they want Temple to end up with. Matt is an innocent with a troubled background who is getting acclimated to the real world, while Max, the magician, seems the ultimate in-control person.

An astute reader noted that Temple is the "medium who presents the message," and the nexus around which the other human characters and Louie revolve. That's very true, and may be why my subconscious surrounded Temple with characters whose names begin with "M:" Max, Matt, Lt. Molina, Midnight Louie. Normally, I'm careful not to overuse a letter in names, but I've also seen my subconscious throw out names that become far more symbolic than I intended.

Crescent Blues: Among your principal characters, do you have a favorite? Again, why?

Carole Nelson Douglas: Well, I do love ethically challenged characters, and Matt's religious background makes him an ideal sounding board. He has so much to learn, and he's so eager to do it right. He's the kind of character writers can use and abuse, presenting him with endless challenges that mirror a whole society's worth of issues.

Crescent Blues: The cats Louie encounters on his adventures have very distinct "purrsonalities" and frequently raise social issues that counterpoint the personal crises of your human characters. They also puncture more than a few of the humans' balloons. How do readers respond to this satire of current mores?

Carole Nelson Douglas: Readers love the Louie segments and read them aloud to their cats, and occasionally, their significant others. Readers seem to enjoy the cats' high-handed dismissal of human foibles. Most cat-lovers prize the species' independence (no pant-pant, beg-beg from a cat!) and therefore get a kick out of any portrayal of feline disdain for many things human, such as behavior.

Crescent Blues: What do you think makes mysteries such a good forum for satire?

Carole Nelson Douglas: Setting is important in mystery, if only as an interesting scene of the crime. Also, needing a circle of suspects, writers end up exploring a particular milieu or special interest group. And an environment and events that can lead to murder can also be murderously funny. Then, too, there's black humor, that refuge of medical examiners and others faced with gory and gruesome death in all its guises. Even noir, taken too far, becomes a satire of itself.

Crescent Blues: Like John MacDonald's Travis McGee, the black cat Louie operates in a world of color. Seven of his nine mysteries feature colors in the title, including the most recent: Cat in a Golden Garland and Cat on a Hyacinth Hunt? Which comes first the color or the McGuffin? How hard is the color tie in to sustain?

Carole Nelson Douglas: When the third book of the series was renamed, it was very hard coming up with a "Cat" title sequence that didn't imitate the two cat series already out at the time. I must have tried 40 different titles, but used Tennessee William's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof as a model to avoid starting out "The Cat" or "A Cat," which were already taken.

I was at my wit's end when I sent the sheet of proposed titles to Tor/Forge then editor-in-chief Bob Gleason. I had no favorite pattern. I was writing things like "Cat Up a Tree," "Cat Down a Well," "Cat on a Blue Tuesday." Bob's editor's eye landed on "Cat on a Blue Tuesday."

"We'll use 'Cat' and color," he said, "but make it Cat on a Blue Monday." That's when I realized that "Blue" used the second letter of the alphabet and was the third book, and I decided to continue the internal alphabet from there to guide readers to the order. If they didn't notice the sequence at first, all the better; mystery readers like to figure out puzzles.

Now, however, I've hedged myself into a title pattern that must be in alphabetical order, must use a color name in proper sequence, must not be too long a color name because the cover layout limits title space, must be a color against which Midnight Louie's black silhouette will stand out, must be a color that will look well between the previous and subsequent title colors, must be easy to say, and must lend itself to tying into something in the book. What a corner I have "colored" myself into!

"Blue Monday" has no relation to the book's events because it was renamed after I wrote it, but the following colors all do tie into the plot line. So I weigh all these factors and come up with the result.

This can force creativity in both packaging and content. Cat in an Indigo Mood was the right title, but Midnight Louie would vanish against an indigo background. The answer was to make the background white, and Louie indigo! This also distinguishes the book from others in the series.

Cat in a Jeweled Jumpsuit came about when Chris Dao, my publicist, suggested "Jeweled" for "J." I was worried it wasn't a real "color," but then decided now was a good time to do the Elvis…

Carole Nelson Douglas (continued)

Click here to read the Crescent Blues review of Cat in a Golden Garland.