Cat Among the Pigeons is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in the UK by the Collins Crime Club on 2 November 1959,[1] and in the US by Dodd, Mead and Company in March 1960 with a copyright date of 1959.

Knowing that he is unlikely to survive the violence, Prince Ali Yusuf entrusts his best friend and pilot, Bob Rawlinson, to smuggle a fortune in jewels out of the country.

Rawlinson conceals the gems within the hollow of the handle of a tennis racquet belonging to his niece Jennifer, the daughter of his sister Joan, without telling them.

When the police begin to investigate, Goodman reveals to Inspector Kelsey, and later to Miss Bulstrode, that he works for British Intelligence.

He is at Meadowbank to track down the gems Rawlinson smuggled out, by monitoring Prince Ali Yusuf's cousin, Shaista, who is attending the school.

Interviewing Miss Bulstrode, Poirot learns that Julia's mother, Mrs. Upjohn, who once worked in British counterintelligence during the war, recognized a fellow agent at the school on the first day of term.

Poirot briefly focuses attention on Miss Rich as a potential suspect, so he can put the true murderer at ease.

Miss Shapland had been in Ramat three months earlier, and was the woman who had witnessed Rawlinson concealing the gems in Jennifer's racquet.

Maurice Richardson of The Observer of 8 November 1959 said, "Some nice school scenes with bogus sheikhs sweeping up in lilac Cadillacs to deposit highly scented and busted houris for education, and backwoods peers shoving hockey-stick-toting daughters out of battered Austins.

This change necessitated that many of the novel's scenes referencing the Middle East, World War II, and the British Secret Service be rewritten or eliminated.

[6] In the US a condensed version of the novel appeared in the November 1959 (Volume LXXVI, Number 11) issue of the Ladies Home Journal with an illustration by Joe DeMers.