During a blizzard, at three in the morning, Private Investigator Eli Paxton gets a surprising phone call from his friend, Lieutenant Jim Simmons from the Cincinnati Police Department. There's been a murder and Eli is asked to go to the scene of the crime, but it's not for the murder itself. In a posh area of the city, millionaire Malcolm Pepperidge was shot twice in the back while out on his balcony, gazing at the stars.

Eli is hired by Mrs. Pepperidge, who doesn't care one iota who killed her husband; she wants him to find her cat Fluffy, which went missing the night of the murder. Although it seems like finding a needle in a haystack, the cat is rather easily found at an animal shelter, where an unknown man brought her, and Fluffy is returned to her rightful owner. To his astonishment, Mrs. Pepperidge shouts at him because Fluffy does not have her collar, and she fires him on the spot!

Needless to say, Paxton is perplexed; he goes to a diner to have a bite to eat while mulling over the recent events, and a big man comes over and sits at his table: Val Sorrentino, a rather shady character from a Chicago family. The victim was once known as Big Jim Palanto, financial advisor to the Mafia, who had left the Family on good terms to start his own business. That's when Eli learns there is much more to Big Jim: when his new business didn't go so well, he got involved with a Bolivian drug cartel where he skimmed off money and bought 10 million dollars' worth of diamonds, which were hidden in the cat's collar. Sorrentino suggests they team up, find the diamonds, and share the insurance's finder's fee. In spite of his chosen profession, Sorrentino seems on the up-and-up, Eli's car is in dire need of a new transmission, and the cases have not been coming his way recently. Since he doesn't have anything better to do, he somewhat reluctantly accepts the mobster's assistance, and the unlikely partners are off to find the missing diamonds.

At first glance, CAT ON A COLD TIN ROOF seems much like your typical 50s film noir or pulp fiction: Eli Paxton is a slob, lives a cheap apartment, is often late with his rent, doesn't do technology, but he's very, very good at his job. This is just about where the resemblances with old detective stories end. Mr. Resnick's prose is so fluid and easy, you simply go along for the ride until the intricate and meticulously constructed plot keeps you glued to the page. The characters are very well developed, colourful and endearing, even those who would seem unlikely to fill the part. CAT ON A COLD TIN ROOF is the third book in the Eli Paxton Mysteries series; the author was new to me, and I'm very pleased to say that I am most definitely looking forward to the next book in the series!