Spinster sleuth Hildegarde Withers and Inspector Oscar Piper are on the case of murder among the dog breeders, in a case reminiscent of S.S. Van Dine's The Kennel Murder Case (1933).
This edition adds an introduction to Hildegarde Withers, a filmography, and a bibliography.
"Stuart Palmer's detective tales usually feature either Hildegarde Withers, a spinster sleuth, or, less frequently, Howie Rook, the least hard boiled of all private eyes. Palmer's tales are generally comic in tone, but he is not a member of the "farce school" of Phoebe Atwood Taylor. Rather Palmer's works adhere to the classical detective paradigms of the intuitionist school, of such writers as Agatha Christie and Ellery Queen. Reading Palmer's best works show why this school is so well loved: watching Hildegarde Withers unravel The Riddle of the Black Museum (1946) is just plain fun. There is a detective, a mystery, and an ingenious solution, and one experiences a strong desire to read more stories like this." —A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection