Golden Age of Detective Fiction

I’m continuing my #20booksofsummer24 challenge, hosted by Cathy @746books, and posting the second title in #ReadingtheMeow2024 hosted by Literary Potpourri with the first book of the long-running Rachel Murdock series. The series features the crime-solving septuagenarian Miss Rachel and her satin black cat, Samantha.

The Cat Saw Murder, written in 1937, has been plucked from obscurity and reprinted in the American Mystery Classics series, with an introduction by Joyce Carol Oates. The introduction by Oates is strange. Usually, these reprintings are prefaced by a writer or editor who is an unabashed fan of the book or series, but instead, we are given an essay by Oates, who discusses the magical connection between the reader and the detective, the entertaining coziness of this guilty pleasure cat mystery, and a long discussion of locked-room books in general and how The Cat Saw Murder fits into this vein of mysteries.

Except The Cat Saw Murder is not a cozy mystery. The murder victim, Rachel Murdock, and even the cat, Samantha, are violently assaulted. Other victims are tortured, drugged, and have their hands cut off….there’s some pretty intense physical violence happening in this book, which puts it out of the cozy mystery genre for me. The writing has several noir and gothic allusions, which similarly belie its dark, sinister tone.

Also, the locked room element, which Oates waxes poetic, is figured out quickly by both the detective and Rachel Murdock and does not hinder the solving of the crime or provide vital information for the eventual solution. A locked room element does not qualify the mystery for the subgenre of Locked Room Mystery. Suffice it to say that Joyce Carol Oates and I disagree about how to interpret The Cat Saw Murder and its place in mystery fiction.

Now, on to the book:

Elderly spinster sisters Rachel and Jennifer Murdock are enjoying a quiet breakfast in their large, sprawling house when the telephone rings. Rachel answers the phone and finds her niece, Lily, breathless, hoarse, and completely out of sorts. She pleads for her Aunt Rachel to visit her and help her out of the jam.

Lily, their foolish, coy, and impetuous niece, is often in trouble with money, men, or a dangerous combination. Her disastrous first marriage, which almost left her penniless, left a bad taste in Rachel and Jennifer’s oldest sister’s mouth; since she had no children, Lily was the nearest relative to inherit her fortune. And partly out of spite- partly to protect Lily from her nature- she left her vast fortune to Rachel’s cat, Samantha, until its natural death, her hope that Lily will have gained some sense by the time the cat dies.

Rachel Murdock, who loved her niece as a child, heads to aid with Samantha in tow to Lily’s lodgings. Lily, ever the same, is living in a slatternly boarding house with a cast of unsavory neighbors. It doesn’t take long for Rachel to coax the truth out of Lily; she’s up to eyelids in gambling debts with her neighbors after being shown a “foolproof method” at winning at cards by her sweetheart, Mr. Malloy. Mr. Malloy disappeared three weeks earlier from the boarding house, and Rachel Murdock believes he has tricked Lily into a sham marriage and done a bunk.

Before Rachel Murdock can raise the money to get Lily out of her troubles, two attempts are made on poor Samantha’s life—an amateurish poisoning of a chunk of meat, followed by an attempted squashing by a boulder. Rachel Murdock suspects Lily is behind these foolhardy attempts to kill Samantha so she can inherit her dead aunt’s cash.

Before Rachel can advance Lily the money and forgive her for attempting to kill Samantha, Lily is bludgeoned to death in her room with an ax, and Rachel Murdock nearly dies that same night from morphine poisoning. Detective Mayhew is called in to untangle the deadly web at the boarding house- at the center of the crimes is the heiress, Samantha, who might lose all her nine lives if she’s not careful.

The Review

The Cat Saw Murder shows how the titular cat, Samantha, fierce, regal, obedient, and loyal, causes much trouble when she’s made the sole heiress to an old lady’s fortune. However, the old aunt was pretty slick and stipulated that if Samantha came to a sticky end, nobody would inherit the money from Samantha’s trust. It’s all going to cat charities. The introduction of the cat heiress is hilarious, sad, and spiteful and sets in motion several brutal murders.

Rachel Murdock, having lived a blameless life the last 70 years under the baleful eyes of her sister, has of late begun a new fascination- murder mysteries and when she finds herself assaulted, her niece axed, and her cat potentially washed to get rid of blood evidence- she is fascinated and determined to find out the truth behind the strange events.

Rachel has a soft spot for her ne’er-do-well niece, small children, and, of course, her cat. However, she’s determined to find out the truth. This streak of determination has her breaking into rooms, climbing in attic crawlspaces to eavesdrop, tracking down suspicious hammers, and creating an unlikely friendship with Detective Mayhew.

Since Rachel Murdock is suffering from Morphine poisoning for a good portion of the book, we, the readers, trail Detective Mayhew, who is a supremely competent investigator but is a bit of a bull in a china shop- tremendous, quick with a fist, and even quicker to regret using his fist, his bold, rough and tumble approach alienates suspects and endears them in the same breath. I like his suspects enjoyed and, in equal measure, was exasperated by his punch-first methods. He is tempered by Murdock’s emotional connection to the case and helps temper her sentimentality because the murderer they are chasing is brutal.

They want Samantha’s money and have cut off Mr. Malloy’s hands after torturing him to get it. They have purposefully entangled Lily in a gambling scheme and then killed her to be one step closer to her inheritance. They have rigged an ingenious alibi and break into tenants’ rooms without compunction to clear away any clues or to leave behind incriminating evidence.

What keeps them from killing Samantha outright? You’ll have to read to find out.

The Cat Saw Murder is a darkly noirish take on cat mysteries. Everyone is hiding secrets behind the closed doors of their rooms at Surf’s Hut on Breaker’s Beach, California. Secret marriages, hidden relationships, and gambling schemes are all bubbling under the surface of this small seaside town. In a deadly game of cat and mouse- Samantha better play for keeps.

The Cat Saw Murder is a suspenseful, rich, thrilling mystery with motives and mayhem galore.

20 Books of Summer 24 Reviews

The Cat Saw Murder is the third book review for the #20booksofsummerreading challenge. In my introductory post, I discussed the reading challenge and the 20 books spanning the breadth of the golden age of detective fiction that I chose. You can read more about my selections here.

You can read my review of Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers, the first book I selected for the project here.

You can read my review of The Abbey Court Murder by Annie Haynes, the second book of the challenge here.

Reading The Meow 2024 Reviews

You can read my review of The Alarm of the Black Cat, the second installment of Dolores Hitchens’s Rachel Murdock series, which I posted for #ReadingtheMeow here.