A Pat & Jean Abbott mystery set on the eve of Pearl Harbor

The old tyrant had never been popular, but was canceling a children's Christmas party motive enough for murder? And why bang Jean's cat on the head with a wrench?

Shortly after Thanksgiving 1941, Jean Holly returns to her small southern Illinois home town to be with an ailing aunt, only to find herself caught up in the murder of the town tyrant, old Mrs. Claribel Fabian Lake. Then Jean's boyfriend, San Francisco private detective Pat Abbott, shows up. While Pat snoops for clues and listens to news reports from Washington, D.C., 26-year-old Jean wonders if he's really serious about her. Maybe it's time to resign herself to life as a spinster.
Then the dead woman's maid is found hanged in a room filled with stuffed birds, Jean's cat Toby is knocked unconscious, and an owl is heard in the night. Somehow all these events are linked to a mysterious missing golden box.
Just about everyone in town had reason to want to see Claribel dead. She was a haughty, mean-spirited old woman who ruled her household - and the entire town - with an iron fist, even going so far as to cancel her support for the children's Christmas party at the local church.
Set during the final days leading up to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, this second mystery involving Pat and Jean provides a marvelous portrait of small-town America on the eve of the World War II. First published in 1942, The Golden Box is set in a town based on Crane's own home town, Lawrenceville, Illinois.