THE ARMCHAIR REVIEWER
Allen J. Hubin


WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT Cat and Mouse

WILLIAM CAMPBELL GAULT – Cat and Mouse. St. Martin’s, hardcover, 1988. No paperback edition.

   I have not been very enthusiastic about the products of septuagenarian William Campbell Gault’s return to the criminous arena, but Cat and Mouse is more like it.

   Brock Callahan, retired (owing to a handsome inheritance) private eye, is back again, and this time involved in a case in which I can believe. A dead cat, deposited on Callahan’s front lawn, announces the arrival — and implies the murderous intentions — of the bald man with the scar.

   Nameless he is, and nameless he stubbornly remains, probably arisen out of one of Brock’s old cases (but which?) and determined on a lingering revenge. How does he remain just out of reach, flitting here and there, leaving the odd body behind, when cops of several cities and all of Brock’s numerous friends and connections are on the lookout?

   Quite pleasant.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
       Vol. 11, No. 1, Winter 1989.