A young lawyer hired by a pretty young woman to investigate the motives behind a proposed stock buy-back cheats death repeatedly as he painstakingly uncovers secrets that executives at Harper Products don’t want revealed. Authored by the father of detective novelist Sue Grafton, “The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope” takes readers on an adventure via plane, train and automobile as the protagonist stops at nothing in his search for the truth. Grafton was one of the first crime writers to add humor to the hard-boiled style of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Written by C.W. Grafton. Paperback, 304 pages.

The Library of Congress Crime Classics series features a rich and diverse selection of books originally published between the 1860s and the 1960s. These titles are drawn from the Library’s collection of hard-to-find and out-of-print books, with cover designs inspired by images from the Library’s collections.

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