The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

The first installment in a long-running mystery series, the novel follows Jim Qwilleran, a veteran journalist whose once-distinguished career has deteriorated through short-term jobs and prolonged unemployment. Qwilleran arrives at the Daily Fluxion, a city newspaper, for an interview with the managing editor, who offers him a desk in the Feature Department writing human-interest stories about local artists. Dismayed but desperate for work, Qwilleran reconnects with Arch Riker, the feature editor and an old friend, who hands him an urgent directive to profile Cal Halapay, a wealthy advertising executive who paints portraits of children.

Arch also briefs Qwilleran on the newspaper's art critic, George Bonifield Mountclemens III, who writes from home, never visits the office, and keeps the city in constant uproar with his savage reviews. The art page draws more readers than sports. When Qwilleran visits Halapay's lavish estate, the interview proves fruitless until he mentions Mountclemens. Halapay erupts, calling the critic a fraud, and attacks painter Zoe Lambreth and her husband Earl, who runs the Lambreth Gallery. Back at the office, Arch reveals the real motive behind the assignment: Mountclemens savaged Halapay's one-man show, and the furious millionaire has been pulling advertising from the Fluxion. The editor wants a flattering profile to restore the business relationship.

At the Valentine Ball at the Turp and Chisel, the city's art club, Qwilleran encounters widespread hostility toward Mountclemens. Cal's flirtatious wife, Sandra (Sandy) Halapay, introduces him to other guests, including sculptor Ben Riggs and watercolorist Franz Buchwalter. Sandy tells him about Uncle Waldo, a retired butcher whose charming animal paintings Mountclemens reviewed so cruelly the old man stopped painting. In the games room, Butchy Bolton, a sculptor who teaches welded metal at Penniman School of Fine Art, leads a dart game called "Kill the Critic." Qwilleran also meets Zoe Lambreth, whose soft voice makes an immediate impression. Zoe invites him to visit the gallery and subtly warns him against Sandy's art advice.

At the Lambreth Gallery, Earl Lambreth shows Qwilleran paintings by Scrano, a reclusive European artist whose geometric canvases command five-figure prices. In the upstairs office, Qwilleran notices a half-canvas painting of a ballerina by the artist Ghirotto. Lambreth explains it was damaged in transit and sold in two pieces; reuniting it with the missing half, depicting a monkey, is his life's ambition.

Qwilleran dines at Mountclemens' apartment at 26 Blenheim Place, a Victorian townhouse crammed with art treasures. The critic, elegantly slender in a dark red velvet jacket, introduces his Siamese cat, Kao K'o-Kung (Koko), named after a 13th-century Chinese artist. Mountclemens explains that cats possess extrasensory abilities, and Koko demonstrates by tracing newspaper headlines with his nose, reading them from right to left. Mountclemens offers Qwilleran the vacant downstairs apartment. Qwilleran moves in, publishes a successful profile of Uncle Waldo that revives interest in the old man's work, and agrees to feed Koko while Mountclemens travels to New York.

The murder of Earl Lambreth shatters the routine. Lambreth is found stabbed in the throat with a chisel at his gallery, discovered by Zoe at seven o'clock. An electric desk clock has stopped at six-fifteen. Several paintings depicting the female figure have been slashed, but works by Zoe and Scrano are untouched, and there is no evidence of forced entry. Zoe later confides in Qwilleran, revealing that Earl had many enemies and recalling an overheard phone call in which Earl insisted a station wagon was parked in the alley, though their own car was elsewhere. She also notes that if the Ghirotto halves were reunited, the complete painting would be worth approximately $150,000.

Meanwhile, Qwilleran investigates other leads. He learns that Butchy lost a $50,000 sculpture commission when Lambreth redirected it to another artist. At a Happening, an audience-participation art event at Penniman School, chaos erupts when Nino, a junk sculptor and Zoe's protégé, falls 26 feet from scaffolding while trying to save his sculpture and dies. Qwilleran's other theories also collapse: a gold dagger reported missing from the museum turns up in a department safe, and the Ghirotto ballerina is found filed in the gallery stockroom.

Then Mountclemens himself is murdered. Returning home after midnight from dinner at Zoe's house, Qwilleran finds Koko waiting with desperate cries, fur bristling. Following the cat's frantic signals, Qwilleran discovers Mountclemens' body in the patio, stabbed. Koko circles the body in a slow, ritualistic procession.

In the days that follow, Koko leads Qwilleran to two crucial discoveries. In Mountclemens' art storage closet, the cat paws insistently at a painting rack. The canvas Qwilleran pulls out depicts a monkey. Zoe confirms it is the missing half of the Ghirotto, meaning Mountclemens possessed the very painting Earl had spent years seeking. Zoe confesses she despised the critic, having flirted with him only to protect her career. When Mountclemens pressured her to leave Earl, Earl confronted the critic with threats of exposure. Zoe then reveals an even larger secret: Mountclemens owned the Lambreth Gallery. Earl was merely a salaried employee. The critic wrote favorable reviews of his own merchandise while attacking competitors. Earl kept two sets of books and had threatened to report the fraud to the Internal Revenue Service.

Over dinner with police reporter Lodge Kendall and Homicide detectives, Qwilleran presents his findings. Detective Hames points out that the desk clock was deliberately unplugged, not damaged, meaning the murderer staged the time of death to create an alibi. Koko then leads Qwilleran to a tapestry in Mountclemens' hallway. Behind it lies a concealed door and servants' staircase leading to a hidden studio in the rear apartment. On a return visit, Qwilleran finds Scrano paintings stacked among the canvases. Koko traces one signature from right to left: O-N-A-R-C-S. Qwilleran realizes SCRANO reversed is essentially O. NARX. There is no Italian recluse; a painter named Oscar Narx created the celebrated works.

Before Qwilleran can act, Narx enters through the back door and charges with a palette knife. Koko erupts in a frenzy of shrieks and aerial strikes, and Qwilleran seizes a heavy flashlight to knock Narx unconscious.

Narx's statement to police reveals the full scheme. He and Mountclemens collaborated on the Scrano fraud: Narx had superb technique but no creative imagination, while Mountclemens, who could no longer paint after losing a hand, designed the compositions. On the day of Lambreth's murder, Mountclemens gave Narx his own plane ticket and sent him to New York, placing the critic's name on the passenger list. Free in the city, Mountclemens killed Lambreth, staged the scene, and drove to New York in Narx's station wagon. Narx discovered the deception, realized he had served as an unwitting alibi, and began blackmailing Mountclemens. When Mountclemens tried to ambush Narx in the patio, Narx overpowered and killed him. Narx then returned to collect paintings bearing his real signature, which is when Qwilleran and Koko intercepted him.

A final loose end is resolved: Butchy sprained both wrists trying to save Nino at the Happening, confirming his death was accidental. Qwilleran reflects with Koko on all the ways the cat guided the investigation, but Koko responds only by contorting himself into a ridiculous posture to scratch his ear, leaving the mysteries of his feline intelligence cheerfully unresolved.