MARY PLUM – State Department Cat. Doubleday Crime Club, hardcover, 1945.

   Touch the cat, aptly named Trouble, that wanders the State Department halls, and bad luck ensues. The last Department employee who did so was assigned to Australia and was never heard from again.

   George Stair, about to take his oral exam for the Diplomatic Corps, touches the cat and fails the test. He also has secret papers stolen from him, is hit with the ever popular blunt instrument, and suffers various other unpleasantnesses while dealing with a would-be Latin-American dictator and a Nazi spy.

   An occasionally amusing thriller that will probably appeal only to those interested in the Washington, D.C., area, and maybe not to them. Still, it’s far better than Plum’s mysteries featuring John Smith.

MARY PLUM. 1904?-1991?    Series character: John Smith [JS].

      The Killing of Judge McFarlane (n.) Harper 1930 [JS]
      Dead Man’s Secret (n.) Harper 1931 [JS]

      Murder at the Hunting Club (n.) Harper 1932 [JS]

      Murder at the World’s Fair (n.) Harper 1933 [JS]
      State Department Cat (n.) Doubleday 1945
      Susanna, Don’t You Cry! (n.) Doubleday 1946

      Murder of a Redhaired Man (n.) Arcadia 1952

Note:   The first four books are all also Harper Sealed Mysteries.   Of Dead Man’s Secret, an online list of novels taking place in Illinois says: “Most of the people at Gray Manner’s house party are glad to see Rook Chilvers get what’s coming to him, but no one is willing to admit the murder. As the case develops and evidence implicates first one guest then another, even the cool, logical John Smith, a professional Chicago detective, seems puzzled.”