Here's a story written in breezy journalese that has all the ingredients of a first-class thriller: crime, mystery, and love. Fresh and hot as "front page" stuff, it travels swiftly, keyed to the author's enthusiasm for the setting-her own town, Chicago-her newspaper experience, her own obvious passion for life, its perpetual intrigue, plot and counterplot.

The whole story comes to the reader through the eyes of reporter Kym, and of Dawn Carson-"sob-sister-in-chief to Chicago's most spectacular evening paper." A story in which are involved an Evanston professor and his highly decorative wife; the police of that "snooty" suburb; Chicago's Chief of Detectives; Annie Thompson-who raises delphiniums for a living; Karl Meisterburg, wearing a fur-collared coat in August; Dawn and Kym falling in love. And all revolving around a mysterious pair of jade green cats. Like the Sphinx they will guard their secret to the end.

The Jade Green Cats was published in 1931.

For more vintage detective fiction, visit Coachwhip Books.