THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD CATS

St. Martin's 1991 winner of the ``Best First Malice Domestic Novel'': When compulsive CPA Allen Finley is found in his home dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, the only two people who don't believe it's suicide—Finley's psychiatrist, Dr. James (Jack) Caleb, and burned-out Chicago cop John Thinnes—are thrown together in wary intimacy. Thinnes invites Caleb on an unforgettable night in the patrol car with his unenthusiastic partner Ray Crowne; Caleb asks Thinnes's help when he's blackmailed by somebody who doesn't realize he's out of the closet and then is set up on a drug charge; Caleb helps Thinnes prove that some photos threatening to split up his marriage have been faked; and still Thinnes keeps wondering whether Caleb isn't his likeliest suspect.... The mystery that links Finley to such clients as the prominent, dysfunctional Margolis family is merely serviceable—though adroitly spun out—but the tensely nuanced relationship between Caleb and Thinnes makes this pseudonymous debut memorable—and Dymmoch (``the pen name of a woman...driver of a municipal bus'') definitely worth watching.