The Cat Wears a Noose

Walking home wearily from an evening spent poring over the books of the Parchly Heights Methodist Ladies’ Aid searching for a fifty-eight-cent error, Miss Jennifer Murdock becomes witness to a terrible scene: A man, stumbling drunk, arrives home-and just as he fumbles with his keys, gunfire erupts and kills him on the spot.

Jennifer is determined not to tell her sister, Rachel, anything about it. After all, Rachel considers herself a sleuth, or as Jennifer views it, a busybody who pokes her nose in places it doesn’t belong. What she doesn’t know is Rachel has just had a visit from a member of that same household, a meek eighteen-year-old taken in after she was orphaned and treated like a servant. Young Shirley has been alarmed by a series of nasty pranks-and now she’s heartbroken, and even more frightened, after finding her pet bird dead. There’s something awful going on in the house on Chestnut Street, and neither her prim and proper sister nor Det. Lt. Stephen Mayhew can stop Rachel from finding out what it is. The Cat Wears a Noose was previously published under the pseudonym D.B. Olsen.

Author Biography

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 Band a part by Jean-Luc Godard. Rhys Bowen is the New York Times bestselling author of more than forty novels, including The Victory Garden, The Tuscan Child, and the World War II-based In Farleigh Field. Bowen’s work has won over twenty honors to date, including multiple Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity awards. A transplanted Brit, Bowen divides her time between California and Arizona.