In the clammy recesses of the cement stairwell, she discovered the terrifying truth: she was the patsy, and her role was to die — screaming!

Well, he was losing weight and always hungry, Michael Rigsby told his wife. But Annabelle wasn’t alarmed. She was disgustingly cheerful...

The plan was simple at first, and then, when we started, I knew that this conspiracy to hijack the Syndicate was the master of all of us. But I was smart... so damned smart, and I knew we could play with murder and not get burned!

Professor Quotient’s quiz act suddenly pays off in grim murder, with a baffling mystery as the jackpot question!

Steve Harris, private-eying for a notorious gambler, had to make a play for a wild killer’s loyal sweetheart — to unearth ninety grand in bloody gold.

Lovely night-club thrush Laura Lynn hires a man with a ready gun, so that when you next see her name in a column, it won’t be under — obituaries!

To trap the murder-mind who turned his frat into a slaughterhouse... brain-boy Arlin and his campus queen — played sitting duck.

Because he couldn’t brush off a lady, Lieutenant Jamison hunted the racketeer who’d put her boy-friend — on ice.

At rare intervals we find ourselves in the odd position of publishing a book we cannot describe on the jacket flap. This is a baffling sample of the genre. On the most obvious level, it is a wry, unsentimental, perceptive account of how to co-exist with two cats of astonishing longevity. On another level, it is an illuminating portion of informal autobiography of one of the more successful writers of fiction of our times. Additionally, it is a careful, authentic observation of the domesticated feline, of Roger and Geoffrey, gentleman cats of humor, intelligence, protocol, and delicately savage heritage. Perhaps most interesting of all is this backstage glimpse of the writer at home, his...

The paw of the cat — reached out for the killer of that lovely doomed blonde and closed — on nothing!