Eli Paxton was a Cincinnati, Ohio detective stuck in a snow storm and no sign of clients needing his help, with only his dog, Marlowe, for companionship. He received a call at three a.m. from his friend Lieutenant Jim Simmons of the Cincinnati Police Department asking Eli if he could come out to a murder scene as there was someone who wanted to hire him to find something that was missing.

The only clue was that it was something he specialized in. Believing that beggars couldn’t be choosers, and knowing he needed a new transmission for his car, he headed out into a roaring blizzard.

When he arrived at the Pepperidge mansion, he found out a former financial advisor to a Chicago Mafia boss had been killed. The victim had left the business fifteen years ago, changed his name and location and moved on. Unfortunately, an upcoming trial may have led to his death so he couldn’t testify against his former boss.

Eli quickly found out he wasn’t hired to find the killer, but to find the widow’s tabby cat. The cat was wearing a diamond studded collar of gems worth millions of dollars, and was now missing. After a couple of days, Eli found the cat but the collar was gone.

The next thing he knew, he was partnered up with Val Sorrentino, an enforcer with the mob, who also became somewhat of a friend as the two worked together to find the fortune. Along the way they had to deal with Bolivian drug cartel, a wild-eyed nasty widow, and men who wanted to seriously hurt them before they could find the diamonds and claim the reward.

Cat on a Cold Tin Roof written by Mike Resnick is the third book in what has become a solid entertaining mystery series starring Eli Paxton. The light-hearted mystery provides plenty of smiles and an occasional laugh out loud moment while also serving up serious crime fiction that will keep readers turning pages.

The novel is written in the first person narrative, and the cast of characters make up a large part of the enjoyable storyline.

Resnick is a true story teller who keeps the plot moving and the reader guessing what is going to come up next. You can never sit back and think that you know what is going to happen, because most of the time you would be wrong.

Much of the fun is the twists and turns, the surprises that keep you reading as you try to figure out who done it and why.

A special thank you goes to Seventh street Books for providing us with a complimentary copy this novel for our review. You can pick up any of the books in this series including Cat on a Cold Tin Roof: An Eli Paxton Mystery (Eli Paxton Mysteries) on Amazon.com.