Cat's claw

An innocuous bit of surveillance takes a pair of septuagenarian spinsters far from their Los Angeles home in pursuit of a killer. The third of Rachel and Jennifer Murdock's 13 cases, originally published by Hitchens in 1943 under the pseudonym D.B. Olsen, begins innocently enough with Rachel idly watching a bandy-legged man, who in turn has been watching one particular window in a neighboring building for three days. Just as he seems to be giving up his vigil, he's struck by a car whose driver picks him up from the sidewalk and spirits him away. A search of the abandoned apartment under the aegis of LAPD Lt. Stephen Mayhew reveals clues that lead the sisters to the mountain village of San Cayetano, with Rachel very much in the lead. Settling into a rooming house, they try to make connections with the circle gathered around Florence MacConnell, who as "Mrs. Smith" had taken residence in the Murdocks' neighborhood, and the land Tommy Hale's father sold to the late father of the Aldershot children: elder brother Robert, who suffers from a heart condition; beautiful sister Monica, who's involved with Tommy; and younger brother Harley, who lacks the legal power to control the property. The discovery of a barely buried body identified as that of Tim Woodley--the bandy-legged man who worked with his brother, Jeff, for the Aldershots--persuades the sisters that they're on the right track even as it points to the dangers ahead. Despite Jennifer's reservations about sleuthing so far from their comfort zone, Hitchens keeps everything moving briskly in what the sisters endearingly dub "The Case of All Outdoors and Bear Heaven." There'll be spiders, too. Apart from a few dated references, a remarkably fresh entry in the cozy-adventure genre. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.