Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | A gata viu a morte | 1939 | Dolores Hitchens | N/A |
| 2 | The Cat Saw Murder | 1939 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 3 | The Alarm of the Black Cat | 1942 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 4 | Cat’s Claw | 1943 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 5 | Catspaw for Murder | 1943 | Dolores Hitchens | N/A |
| 6 | The Cat Wears A Noose | 1944 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 7 | Cats Don’t Smile | 1945 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 8 | Cats Don’t Need Coffins | 1946 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 9 | Cats Have Tall Shadows | 1948 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 10 | The Cat Wears a Mask | 1949 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 11 | Death Wears Cat’s Eyes | 1950 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 12 | The Cat and Capricorn | 1951 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 13 | The Cat Walk | 1953 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
| 14 | Death Walks On Cat Feet | 1956 | Dolores Hitchens | Buy |
The Rachel Murdock Mystery series is Dolores Hitchens’ most extensive and popular body of work, running fourteen novels from 1939 to 1956. Written under the D.B. Olsen pen name, these books follow Rachel Murdock, an elderly woman with a sharp mind and a fondness for cats, as she stumbles into murder cases and works to solve them.
The series launched with “The Cat Saw Murder” in 1939 and continued with titles that frequently referenced felines: “The Alarm of the Black Cat,” “Cat’s Claw,” “Cats Don’t Smile,” and “Death Wears Cat’s Eyes,” among others. Rachel Murdock became one of the more distinctive amateur sleuths of her era. The books blend domestic settings with genuine suspense, and Rachel’s observational skills and stubbornness make her an effective, if unconventional, detective.