When Rachel Murdock and her sister Jennifer receive a call for help from
their favorite niece, Lilly, in Breakers Beach, CA, they quickly hop a
train from Los Angeles to see her -- but not before collecting their
prized cat Samantha in a picnic basket and bringing her along for the
ride. Samatha, it turns out, is an heiress, the inheritor of a fortune
left by a wealthy relative, and so the attempt at the cat's life, made
right after they arrive, comes as a shock. The cat survives, but
unfortunately, Lilly, murdered soon thereafter, is not so lucky.
By the time the police arrive, the clues are already falling into place.
The source of Lilly's trouble is revealed to be a gambling debt incurred
during an attempt to cheat at bridge, and the suspects in her slaying
quickly pile up. But then another corpse is discovered, buried in the
nearby sand, and it becomes clear that the killing spree concerns more
than just the young lady's personal money trouble. With the authorities
distracted by lurid details, it's up to Rachel and her furry friend to
uncover the subtleties containing the solution to the puzzle.
A prototypical early "cat mystery," written before the subgenre became a
staple of cozy mystery fiction, The Cat Saw Murder is an entertaining
and endlessly surprising whodunit with a focus on felines. Reissued for
the first time in over half a decade, the book, written pseudonymously
by the author better known for her hardboiled and suspense novels, is
the first in the long-running Rachel Murdock series.
Includes discussion guide questions for use in book clubs.
