Tue 13 Jan 2015
Reviewed by William F. Deeck: D. B. OLSEN – Cats Don’t Smile.
Posted by Steve under Authors , Reviews[5] Comments
William F. Deeck
D. B. OLSEN – Cats Don’t Smile. Doubleday Doran/Crime Club, hardcover, 1945. Mystery Novel Classic #93, digest-sized paperback, no date. Reprinted in Two Complete Detective Books, January 1946 (with She Fell Among Actors, by James Warren).
Rachel and Jennifer Murdock, whose exploits — if Jennifer can be said to engage in exploits — Olsen has chronicled before and after this novel, go to Sacramento, Calif., to house-sit for Cousin Julia, who for reasons she doesn’t explain must leave the house and does not want her roomers left alone together.
Miss Rachel is the active one of the pair, and she embroils herself in the roomers’ affairs and those of the next-door neighbors. Before she can meddle much, though, one of the roomers is murdered.
For those who enjoy little-old-lady detectives, this should be a pleasing mystery, particularly if active lol’s are preferred. For my part, I have always thought Jane Marple was the perfect type. Not for her the burglary at dead of night or skulking in gardens eluding who knows what.
The motive for murder is both interesting and unusual. However, I had difficulty in accepting the murderer, for reasons which I won’t go into since it would give away the murderer’s identity. Warning: Cat lovers may be upset by one of the incidents in the novel.
(D. B. Olsen is a pseudonym of Dolores Hitchens.)
Bibliographic Note: The Murdock sisters, Jennifer and Rachel, appeared in thirteen mystery novels by D. B. Olsen between 1939 and 1956, all with “Cat” somehow worked in to the titles and all published by Doubleday and their Crime Club imprint. Cats in detective stories is not a new idea.
January 13th, 2015 at 11:16 pm
I liked Hitchens much more in a tougher mode than these. Mrs. Bradley, Hildy Withers, or Miss Pym are about as far as I stray from Jane Marple in terms of older lady sleuths.
How many Olsen books were there anyway? When I was collecting more actively it seemed I stumbled on them at every turn.
January 13th, 2015 at 11:28 pm
Besides the 13 Murdock sisters book, D. B. Olsen wrote six with a Professor Pennyfeather and two solo adventures of police lieutenant Stephen Mayhew. The latter was also in five of the Murdock books.
I’ve always meant to read one of the Hitchens wrote as Olsen, but if I have, I’ve forgotten it.
I’ll bet if went looking for Olsen books now, in bookstores, you’d never find one. Some are even difficult to find online. There are only four copies of CATS DON’T SMILE, the Crime Club hardcover, offered on Abebooks, for example, and none of the paperback. You’d think the paperback would be more common, but not so.
January 14th, 2015 at 7:54 pm
The one Olsen book I’ve read is “The Cat Saw Murder” (1939). I didn’t like it very much. By contrast, Anthony Boucher thought it was the best of the Olsens.
Boucher and I agreed on one thing: this book was full of horror material, and “sick” stuff. It is easy to get the impression that since Miss Rachel is a senior citizen, and that the books have Cat in their titles, that the novels are Cozies. They are emphatically not! “The Cat Saw Murder” is grim and unpleasant.
Boucher didn’t like “Cats Don’t Smile”, though. He felt Miss Rachel was becoming “cute”.
January 14th, 2015 at 7:57 pm
They’re not cozies? I appreciate your mentioning that, Mike. As you suggest, it’s easy to assume they are. That puts them a lot closer to the books that Olsen wrote under her own name, Dolores Hitchens, many of which as I recall could be called medium-boiled, at least.
January 16th, 2015 at 3:31 pm
Grim and unpleasant mystery novels don’t faze me in the least. Is THE CAT SAW MURDER as horror ridden as THE GRINDLE NIGHTMARE? I may have to find a copy of it. I’ve always avoided this series because I thought a cat mystery would be too cute for my tastes.
Lately I’ve become fascinated with the grotesque in crime novels from the Golden Age. So far nothing tops GRINDLE NIGHTMARE in terms of “grim and unpleasant” — two words that always seem to be understatements when I actually read the books in question.