Cat Among the Pigeons
Dust-jacket illustration of the first UK edition
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| Author | Agatha Christie |
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| Cover artist | Not known |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Collins Crime Club |
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Publication date
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2 November 1959 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp (first edition, hardcover) |
| Preceded by | Ordeal by Innocence |
| Followed by | The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding |
Cat Among the Pigeons is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie and first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 2 November 1959, and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in March 1960 with a copyright date of 1959. The UK edition retailed at twelve shillings and sixpence (12/6), and the US edition at $2.95.
It features Christie's Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, who makes a very late appearance in the final third of the novel. The emphasis on espionage in the early part of the novel relates it to Christie's international adventures (such as They Came to Baghdad) and to the Tommy and Tuppence stories.
At the start of the summer term at Meadowbank School for Girls, the most prestigious prep school in England, Miss Bulstrode, the popular but aging headmistress, has no reason to believe that the challenges facing her on parent's day will be more than the occasional irate or inebriated parent. She scarcely listens when Mrs Upjohn, a parent, who just happened to have worked in military intelligence, looks out the window and recognizes on the school campus someone whom she recognised and whose presence at the school apparently surprised but did not alarm her. Mrs Upjohn is still talking but the crucial moment has passed. After Mrs Upjohn leaves, Miss Bulstrode has a sudden feeling that she has missed something important to which she should have paid more attention but then dismissed the notion.
The story flashes back three months to Ramat, a kingdom in the Middle East, where a revolution is about to take place. Prince Ali Yusuf gives a fortune in jewels into the safekeeping of Bob Rawlinson, his pilot and the only person he trusts to take them out of the country. Rawlinson conceals the jewels in the luggage of his sister, Mrs Joan Sutcliffe, travelling with her daughter, Jennifer. He is seen doing this by a rather sinister woman via a handheld mirror on her balcony in the next room. Soon after, both Ali Yusuf and Bob Rawlinson are killed in an aeroplane crash after a flight mechanic sabotages their plane. British Intelligence among others get onto the trail of the jewels. Their attention focuses on Meadowbank School, where not only Jennifer, but also the prince's cousin, Shaista, are studying.
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