Rosemary Kutak again: I Am the Cat

I am the Cat by Rosemary Kutak

published 1948

This is just for completism really – earlier this week I blogged on Darkness of Slumber by the same author, and discovered that she only wrote two books. I ordered a copy of this one for interest, and did enjoy it, but might not have blogged on it except that I can’t find any other reviews of it online (other than a NYT review of the time, behind a paywall). John Norris of Pretty Sinister Books, who introduced me to the first book, is threatening to review it sooner or later.

The copy I received was awful, it smelled bad and was obviously of low-quality to begin with. It had been reprinted as a Mercury Mystery and they had managed to cram it into half the pagecount of the original Farrar Strauss and Giroux*: that had cost $2.50, this cheap one (to be fair) cost 25c. (It cost me a lot more than this to buy now). I was fascinated by this insight into the publishing economics of the time. But it seems to be available at the Open Library, so if anyone wants to read it I recommend they try that. Blogfriend Shay is my expert here and may have input.

Anyway, I read it while trying not to touch it, and not let it touch anything else, and will now dispose of it.

*looking at it again, I think my edition might be abridged. But it seemed a good read, without any noticeable gaps.

First of all, the title: I am the Cat is a pretty great phrase, but I cannot quite say that the book justifies it – although the author makes an attempt. As John Norris points out, Kutak does like a feline metaphor: in the other book tigers come into play.

I was a long way into I Am the Cat before I realized that Kutak has the same psychiatrist at the centre of both books, Marc Castlewood, doing some amateurish and annoying sleuthing. This may reflect on the author, or it may reflect on me. He is attending a house party with a proper crime-story collection of randoms. One of them commits suicide (or did he?), another one dies. A good way through there is a revelation that most of the guests are linked in a way that might provide a motive and a danger. I don’t want to spoiler even though most people will never read the book – but luckily I have a blogpost on a similar plot device which you can look at if you want to find out what the link is, and can safely ignore if not. (I love the idea that I have now blogged on so many books - more than 2,300 - that I can us this as a regular spoiler avoidance device)

The book picked up a lot towards the end – the solution was both surprising to me (given there is a VERY small circle of characters), and convincing and satisfying, allowing for a little cheating on the part of the author. And the aftermath of the reveal worked very well for me too.

There were a good number of incidental joys, as with the first book. A nurse brought in to keep an eye on someone has brought her knitting – ‘The yarn was a forthright pink, without subtlety’. I am lost in admiration of this unimportant sentence. (I may need to create a list of great knitting quotes, featuring a lot of Miss Silver, Miss Marple and Mrs Bradley).

One character wears a ‘flowered breakfast coat’:

There is dressing for dinner:

And there is that great favourite: ‘Ione’s going into the village to see if she can find a black dress to wear to the inquest.’ (I may need to make a list of quotes about mourning, demi-mourning and whether black clothes suit unscrupulous young women)

Rosemary Kutak published her two books in a couple of years, and then nothing (so far as we know) for another 50 years till she died in 1999. What a shame – on the evidence of these two, she could have entertained us a lot more.  

Couple in evening dress from NYPL.

Top picture from the Ladies Home Journal of 1948.