Blood On the Cat

A cosy murder mystery in which a cat helps solve the crime, this forgotten Golden Age classic is perfect for readers of the British Library Crime Classics series.

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.

How do catch a killer when everyone in town has a motive? The police are befuddled by the lack of evidence. And in the end, the key to solving the mystery is found not by them but by Bennet's pet cat, Smoky.

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.