Mystery Set in Mexico by a Choctaw Author
The Cat Screams: When Mura Screamed, Death Stalked the American Colony of the Smart Mexican Resort
Notes: The second novel featuring Downing's recurring character, the US Customs Service inspector Hugh Rennert. Like most of Downing's novels, this one is set in Mexico, in this case among the American ex-pats in Taxco.
Downing was a member of the Choctaw Nation, born in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in 1902. He was the first commercially successful Native American and Oklahoman mystery writer. He was particularly interested in Mexico and the Spanish language (he also spoke Choctaw, French, and Italian) and wrote a book on the history of Mexico from the indigenous perspective, The Mexican Earth (1940; republished 1996).
311 pages.
Edition + Condition: First edition (stated). A very good copy in the original black cloth blind embossed with a skull design. The dust jacket is very good with several closed tears and some chipping along to the top edge, just touching the "T" in "The" at the top of the spine. The spine is mildly faded.
There is no price on the dust jacket. All four corners of the jacket are slightly clipped, as are most jackets from the Crime Club in the mid-1930s. The price is typically printed below the clipping. The only other copy of this book that your cataloguer has seen also does not have a price. One suspects that these price-less jackets were issued on the copies sold to Crime Club subscribers, who received their books by mail.
Publication: New York: Published for the Crime Club by Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1934.
Item No: #362144
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