These are classic mysteries.  I recommend them highly if you are a mystery fan.  They also give a marvelous and humorous picture of life in the 40s, 50s, 60s.  Character-focused stories with continuing characters of the detectives, amateur and professional, and their cats (and a Great Dane for some Heimrich books).  The Lockridges are probably best known for the Mr and Mrs North mysteries, and the Lieutenant/Captain/Inspector Heimrich ones.  Several other continuing characters had their own books, and there were several stand-alone books.

The North's cats are based on the Lockridge's own cats: Martini, Gin, Sherry, and an earlier cat whose name I forget.  They wrote a marvelous book "Cats and People" that gives both personal and world viewpoints on cats. It was originally published in 1950 or 1960, and discusses then-current research on cat psychology and intelligence.   There is a hilarious story of a test of cats' homing instinct.  After describing the rather grim (though not inhumane) conditions of the lab and some of the experiments (how long it takes cats to escape from boxes (as if they would want to)) , it tells of releasing a cat some distance away to see whether it could find its way back.  The cat emerged from its carrier, looked around for a while, as if to make sure a researcher was not hiding behind a bush, then headed out determinedly in the exact opposite direction of the lab.

These are classic mysteries, some of them reissued several times.   Many are not in the PBS database.  Does anyone have one of these that haven't been posted yet?  I'll list some of the earlier ones that are not in the database:

Hanged for a Sheep (1942)   Richard and Frances Lockridge
Death on the Aisle  (1942)
Payoff for the Banker (1945)
Untidy Murder (1947)
The Dishonest Murderer (1949)
Think of Death (1947)
I Want to Go Home (1948)
Spin Your Web, Lady! (1949)
Foggy, Foggy Death (1950)
A Client Is Cancelled (1951)
Death by Association (1952)
     APA: Trial by Terror (1954)
Stand Up and Die (1953)
Death and the Gentle Bull (1954)
    APA: Killer in the Straw (1955)
Burnt Offering (1955)
Practice to Deceive (1957)
Accent on Murder (1958)

Thanks for this information. I love older mysteries (Marsh, Moyes, Yorke, etc) and had never come across these.

Here's a link to all the many books they wrote. Looks like I am going on another author safari.

http://www.stopyourekillingme.com/L_Authors/Lockridge_Richard.html

Charlie,

You might also want to take a look at earlier Sara Woods.  British lawyer going the extra mile for his clients.

I am another big fan of this genre.  Thanks for the recommendation.

bump

My mother belonged to a detective book club while I was growing up and she ordered many of the Lockridges' books.  I loved reading them, and at the time thought Pam and Jerry North were the ultimate in sophistication.  I was a small town girl in the middle of Kansas from a non-drinking home, and the idea of two people in New York, who drank martinis and went out to dinner in fancy restaurants and had cats that lived in the house all the time was just astounding!

I like classic mysteries, too--thanks for the recommendations!