When Rachel Murdock and her sister Jennifer receive a call for help from their favorite niece, Lilly, in Breakers Beach, CA, they quickly hop a train from Los Angeles to see her—but not before collecting their prized cat Samantha in a picnic basket and bringing her along for the ride. Samatha, it turns out, is an heiress, the inheritor of a fortune left by a wealthy relative, and so the attempt at the cat’s life, made right after they arrive, comes as a shock. The cat survives, but unfortunately, Lilly, murdered soon thereafter, is not so lucky. By the time the police arrive, the clues are already falling into place. The source of Lilly’s trouble is revealed to be a gambling debt incurred during an attempt to cheat at bridge, and the suspects in her slaying quickly pile up. But then another corpse is discovered, buried in the nearby sand, and it becomes clear that the killing spree concerns more than just the young lady’s personal money trouble. With the authorities distracted by lurid details, it’s up to Rachel and her furry friend to uncover the subtleties containing the solution to the puzzle. A prototypical early “cat mystery,” written before the subgenre became a staple of cozy mystery fiction, The Cat Saw Murder is an entertaining and endlessly surprising whodunit with a focus on felines. Reissued for the first time in over half a decade, the book, written pseudonymously by the author better known for her hardboiled and suspense novels, is the first in the long-running Rachel Murdock series. Includes discussion guide questions for use in book clubs.

Part of the Miss Rachel mystery series. Miss Rachel has a cat named Samantha that follows her everywhere. There is also her sister Jennifer and a Lieutenant Mayhew who regularly appears.

A bedeviled blonde, a satanic cat and the soft footfalls of a murderer. (front) The footsteps of the murderer came closer and closer.... First, a blonde was mysteriously hurled through a store window before the astonished eyes of a midday crowd on Sunset and Vine. Rachel Murdock was only a bystander, but she soon found herself caught up in the blonde's mysterious troubles, which included the strange disappearance of a beautiful niece, the odd behavior of a ghostly cat and an unmistakable aura of murder. Meantime the murderer crept closer and closer to Rachel herself.