Cats Have Tall Shadows

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.

Hitchens’s superior fair-play will delight golden age devotees; as will the alluring prose.. . . Miss Marple fans who haven’t yet discovered this astute student of human nature are in for a treat.”
― Publishers Weekly

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.

See more titles by Dolores Hitchens.

Introduction by Otto Penzler.