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Todd Downing, born in 1902 to a well-to-do family in Atoka, Oklahoma (in 1902 still in the Choctaw Nation), was an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation and spoke Choctaw fluently. With nine mystery novels published between 1933 and 1941 and numerous other publications Todd Downing remains one of the most prolific Native authors to the present day.
The Cat Screams was Downing's most successful book; it was not only chosen as a selection for The Crime Club but also republished in Great Britain, Sweden, and Germany. In The Cat Screams, Downing creates atmosphere largely through the use of Mexican Indian folklore, including allusions to a possibly supernatural background to the several ghastly murder cases.
The witchcraft world of Indian brujos and curanderas is present throughout. A small clay figure of the Mexican god Xipe plays a significant role in the solution of the case, and Indian myths and cultures are treated with reverence, even though the servant boy whose illness confines the characters of the novel to their quarantined hotel dies not of a curse but acute appendicitis.
With the density of its form, its respectful treatment of indigenous material and its rather hideous drug-related killings, The Cat Screams reads like a predecessor of Tony HiIlerman's novels in topic and form if not in style and tone.
CONDITION: Hard Cover, stated First Edition, 1934, blue cloth boards, moderate wear to boards on corners and spine edge, 311 pages.
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