David Francis Dodge (1910-1974) was a versatile U.S. author of crime fiction and amusing travel books. He published multiple travel articles on assignment for magazines and then incorporated the settings into his fiction. To Catch a Thief is his most famous novel. Alfred Hitchcock adapted it into an Academy Award winning film starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. Originally published in 1952, it was reprinted through the Library of Congress Crime Classics series.

Before launching his writing career, Dodge was a Certified Public Accountant. Writing about what he knew, his first series detective was James Whitney (Whit), a San Francisco tax accountant. Whit made his debut in Death and Taxes, published by Macmillan in 1941. It tends toward the hard-boiled with references to hard drinking and police beating of suspects to obtain a confession.

Whit’s partner George MacLeod has cause to revisit the paperwork for a return he filed five years earlier, a complicated case involving a bootlegger caught through tax evasion. By the time the Internal Revenue Service was finished, taxes owed, interest, and penalties totaled about a million dollars (around $23.75M in 2025) which had to be paid to avoid jail.

In reviewing the file, MacLeod finds a significant error that would justify the refund of about half of that million dollars but the age of the claim means the appropriate forms have to be filed in seven days. MacLeod advised Whit by telephone of his discovery and his plan to submit the request for refund, and Whit goes on with his own work. Then MacLeod is discovered murdered in the firm’s vault. Maybe because of his knowledge of someone’s financial affairs, but maybe because he trifled with the wife of a jealous man once too often.

In addition to assisting the police with their homicide investigation and helping his partner’s widow, Whit as the sole partner is now responsible for filing the claim for reimbursement within the deadline but he has no idea what MacLeod found to justify it. He reviewed the original forms repeatedly and handed them off to the other accountants in the office for their examination. In his search for information Whit himself is attacked and is given a police bodyguard who is not especially effective.

 Great San Francisco setting and fun action scenes, for instance Whit drove a convertible with a top that expanded and retracted at the touch of a button. At one point the top stuck midway, creating a sort of sail that kept the vehicle from moving forward. The usual emphasis of the time on women’s appearances, although in fairness the men are evaluated almost as often. Almost. All activity is punctuated with a cigarette and a drink. Liberal references to tax forms and tax law are woven inconspicuously into the story.

Book critic Isaac Anderson liked it. See his review in the New York Times of 6 July 1941: https://www.nytimes.com/1941/07/06/archives/death-and-taxes-by-david-dodge-277-pp-new-york-the-macmillan.html