This novel was first published in 1953. My Avon 35 cent paperback edition has a real pulpy cover and is one of the later entries in the Mr. and Mrs. North detective mystery series. This story is fairly well written and the tension starts on the first pages. We open with the thoughts of a blackmailer going round and round in his head as he walks the streets of New York thinking about his score.Detective fiction has never been my go-to genre but I enjoy one now and then. This one is really an old-fashioned 50's style tale but probably a notch above the usual. Pulp fiction on the mild side. I must confess that the North's Siamese cats in the story increased my "like." The circumstances that make up all the little pieces of the story are certainly evidence to this reader that 62 years have passed since the story first appeared. I'll also confess to finding a certain charm to the storytelling.Reading this is a little like watching an old black and white B movie. Mrs. North receives a Dictaphone type record in the mail and upon listening to it hears what she thinks is murder. She soon is aware when listening that someone is after that recording, and now her. The mystery deepens, spreads out, pieces of the puzzle start fitting together. I try and figure out whodunit and if there are red herrings. I think this is a story that would have been more enjoyable 50-60 years ago since I kept getting distracted by the differences between the 50's and more recent times, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.I didn't really figure out the mystery mostly because we get introduced to a bunch of characters who aren't terribly well defined and then we go on with the story leaving almost all of them behind. When the reveal came I was like, which one was he? Oh, he's the one I thought who did it (seemed kind of obvious). My fault I think.
