A cosy murder mystery in which a cat helps solve the crime, this is a forgotten Golden Age classic.

When a murder happens in a small town, everyone’s a suspect – but it’s the victim's cat that reveals an essential clue to help catch the killer.

Bennet Farr was the richest and most hated man in town, so when he is found dead, the list of those with a grudge grows endless. There’s the librarian, the journalist, the schoolteacher, and Bennet’s own son, who was struck off the family inheritance just days before Bennet’s death.

When everyone in town is guilty, how do you find the killer? The key to solving the mystery is found not by the police but by Bennet’s pet cat, Smoky.

Nancy Rutledge (Author)
Nancy Rutledge was born in Chicago and educated at Rockford College and Northwestern. Between 1944 and 1960, she authored ten works of crime fiction under her own name, two of them published only in England. She also had one mystery novel published as by Leigh Bryson, a Handi-Book paperback original in 1947. In the 1950s and ’60s, she had eight mystery novels serialized in the Saturday Evening Post, and one that appeared complete in an issue of Redbook.

Otto Penzler (Introducer)
Otto Penzler owns The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and founded the Mysterious Press and Otto Penzler Books. He has written and edited several books, including the Edgar Award-winning Encyclopaedia of Mystery and Detection, and is the series editor of the annual Best American Mystery Stories of the Year.