Back in Las Vegas after a holiday trip to the big apple, feline detective Midnight Louie witnesses death on the Nile when the battling Egyptian barges outside the Oasis hotel bring a dead body to the surface. The soggy victim is well known to Louie's redheaded, high-heeled human companion, Temple Barr: her two best beaux are loosely related to the drowned man, and both have reasons to want him dead. Perhaps Temple can finally choose between handsome hotline counselor Matt Devine and the mysterious magician, Ma Kinsella--by finding out which of them is a killer.

And then there are the new girls in town: an inscrutable lady magician named Shangri-La, who may play a bigger role in this scenario than anyone might think; and her winsome Siamese familiar, who may solve Louie's problems by giving him the key to her heart--or the key to solving the mystery.