Cats Have Tall Shadows

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American Mystery Classics, Apr 6, 2027 - Fiction - 240 pages
Rachel Murdock and her clever cat investigate the disappearance of a hotel owner and the sudden murder of his mysterious business partner.

Rachel Murdock and her sister Jennifer, alongside their sulky feline companion, Samantha, are vacationing on the Oregon coast when a young woman appears in their hotel room with information about her missing uncle. The girl suspects he was murdered by a man named Vernon Niles, the very owner of the hotel in which they’re staying. She vows revenge.

When the trio sneaks into Niles’ suite to investigate the man, they uncover a chilling secret hidden behind a curtain: a macabre menagerie of porcelain cat figurines and skeletons. An image of the man as a suspect forms, but soon after his arrival at the suite, Niles is suddenly gunned down himself right before Rachel’s eyes. It’s up to her and Jennifer, and Samantha’s inquisitive observations, to make sense of the clues. Might the murderer be a suspicious woman in pink roaming the dunes at night? Or perhaps the mysterious gentleman she’s been seen meeting with during off-hours. Or could it be the young woman who first pleaded for their help, with vengeance on her mind?

Cats Have Tall Shadows is a wry and witty Golden Age mystery from one of the masters of cozy suspense. The Murdock sisters are a delightful duo of sardonic commentary who entertain and inform as events unfold. This is the eighth novel in Hitchens’ beloved and acclaimed Rachel Murdock series (published under the pseudonym D.B. Olsen), which can be enjoyed in any order.

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About the author (2027)

Dolores Hitchens (1907–1973) 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.

Otto Penzler is the founder and president of Penzler Publishers, which includes The Mysterious Press, Scarlet, American Mystery Classics, Crime Ink, and MysteriousPress.com. He is also the proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City and is regarded as the world’s foremost authority on crime, mystery and suspense fiction. He has won a Raven, the Ellery Queen Award, two Edgars (for the Encyclopedia of Mystery and Detection, 1977, and The Lineup, 2010), and lifetime achievement awards from Noircon and The Strand Magazine. He has edited more than 80 anthologies and written extensively about mystery fiction.

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