Private detective Kat Colorado decides to look into the mysterious suicide of James Randolph, a Sacramento attorney, but in doing so, she unveils a world of blackmail and deception that leads to violent threats against her, her family, and her friends. The pompous lawyer Kat Colorado works for orders her into his office immediately. "Yo, Carter," she says to him on the phone. "Yesterday I found a body, dealt with a hysterical woman, searched a house, got little more than three hours of sleep on an uncomfortable couch, and you're telling me to be in your office minutes from now?" Faced with this burst of logic and attitude, the lawyer backs down. (Wouldn't you?) Karen Kijewski's latest book about the former Sacramento, California, bartender turned tough, compassionate private eye is built from these same materials--a mysterious death logically probed and eventually solved, and an attitude toward life, love, and murder that manages to be acerbic, sensible, and totally sympathetic. Other books in this pungent series available in paperback include: Alley Kat Blues , Copy Kat , Honky Tonk Kat , Kat's Cradle , Katapult , Katwalk , and Wild Kat . When Sacramento lawyer James Randolph kills himself just in time for the Christmas holiday, Richard Carter, the law partner who hired Kat Colorado to check up on Randolph and see what was bothering him (a typical assignment for Kat), is certain that only some personal disaster would've made him pull the trigger, so he gives Kat a blank check to go on with the case. Luckily for Kat, she's soon hired a second time on what turns out to be the same case, doubling her take while focusing her inquiry. The second client, prim, elderly, matter-of-fact Madeline Hunter, serves on the board of Hope For Kids, a local foundation Randolph had donated generously to. As Kat soon finds out, Madeline's being blackmailed by somebody who demanded she donate $100,000 to Hope For Kids. It doesn't take long for Kat, armed with her usual combination of charm, persistence, and bluff, to discover the shameful secret in Randolph's past--and to establish that an awful lot of Hope For Kids's funding seems to have been accrued in response to the blackmailer's solicitations. But no matter how sure Kat is about the blackmailer's identity, and no matter how many victims she identifies, none of them is willing to risk exposure to testify against this civic-minded monster, who meantime has succeeded in getting to Kat's best buds: her advice- columnist friend Charity, obnoxious reporter J.O. Edwards, even Lindy, the street girl she's rescued. Kat's more successful as therapist than detective in her eighth (Honky Tonk Kat, 1996, etc.); the telling is long-winded, the culprit obvious, and the Christmas motif pounded home without mercy. Ho-ho-ho. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Blackmail is a juicy crime, and Karen Kijewski squeezes the most out of it in ... Kat Scratch Fever by writing with feeling about its emotionally battered victims. -- The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio Fiction Crime Female Investigators Murder Suicide Blackmail