The Cat, the Prince, and the Golden Heron

THE CAT, THE PRINCE, AND THE GOLDEN HERONThe main character of THE CAT, THE PRINCE, AND THE GOLDEN HERON is a private investigator named Cool Cat, who first appeared in THE CAT, THE SUN, AND THE MIRROR. In that mystery-adventure (originally a musical staged by the New York Theatre Institute), he sets out, on his own, to solve the mystery of the Sun's disappearance. The story is based on the ancient Japanese myth about the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, and carries a strong ecological message.THE CAT, THE PRINCE, AND THE GOLDEN HERON is also based on a myth, this one from the Caribbean region about the origin of bioluminescence, the mysterious phenomenon that causes the nighttime sea to glow with light. Cool Cat now finds himself traveling to the enchanted Kingdom of Khalil-"like a Disneyland, but the magic is real." There, with the aid of his new fulltime partner in the Cool Cat Detective Agency, recent Yale graduate the Majorette, he sets out to solve the mystery of what is ailing the heir to the throne, Prince Jabal. Cool Cat's adventure pits him against evil Demons, while the Majorette, with the aid of Laila, the Fairy Queen, must learn how to fly in order to find answers from the Golden Heron, high up in the sky.Each book in the Cool Cat series of mystery-adventures represents the joining of a story taken from the world's rich mythological culture with the distinctly American myth of the loner private eye setting out to find the truth-and along the way facing a truth about him (or her) self.The difference between these stories and typical examples of the private-eye genre is that in these the private eye is a cat (although one who also wears trench coat and fedora).