CAT'S CLAW

Elderly sleuth Rachel Murdock and her inquisitive pet cat head up into the mountains for another adventure in this beloved series.

Unable to stop herself from investigating another murder, Rachel Murdock gets plenty of help from Samantha, the cat who follows her wherever she goes; her much less adventurous sister Jennifer; and Lieutenant Mayhew, who is grateful to have another sharp mind on the case. Miss Rachel, her sister, and her cat are watching with undisguised interest a bandy-legged man who is spying on a house across the street until a speeding black sedan runs him down. The sisters are curious to know why the man was murderedand just as baffled about what happened to the mysterious tenants of the house, who disappear the next day. Their investigations take Miss Rachel and Samantha to the small mountain town of San Cayetano, where she gets entangled in a property conflict that could have deadly consequences. Dolores Hitchens (19071973) was a highly prolific mystery author who wrote under multiple pseudonyms and in a range of styles. A large number of her books were published under the D. B. Olsen moniker (under which her "Cat" series was originally published), but she is perhaps best remembered today for her later novel, Fool's Gold, published under her own name, which was adapted as Bande à part by Jean-Luc Godard. Katherine Hall Page's first novel, The Body in the Belfrey (1991), won the Agatha Award for best first novel. She won the award again for best novel in 2006 for The Body in the Snowdrift. Many more awards followed, including the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award from Malice Domestic and culminating in being named Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America in 2024.