Blood on the Cat

Bennet Farr was the richest, most corrupt, and most hated man in Cognac, a small town just outside of Chicago. He ruled the village with his money and crossed nearly all of the villagers in the process. So when he is found dead one November morning with a bread knife in his back, the chief of police faces a long line of suspects. Was it the new librarian, angered by Farr's threat to close the library? Was it the schoolteacher, whose pupil he threatened? Or perhaps his son, whom he disinherited just before his death?

Reporter Killian McBean is also among the list, since Farr was planning to foreclose on the Cognac Courier and put him out of a job. But, as the cops are befuddled by too many motives, Killian's journalistic acumen cuts through the noise in search of the real story—even if, in the end, it's his cat Smoky that discovers the essential clue that leads to its solution.

Never before issued in paperback in unabridged form, Blood on the Cat is a lost classic worthy of rediscovery, with memorable characters, fair-play clues, and a cat that's as clever as it is charming. Cozy in subject matter, it's sure to please any fan of Golden Age detective fiction.