Miss Withers "whom the census enumerator had recently listed as 'spinster, born Boston, age thirty-nine, occupation school teacher'" becomes an amateur sleuth in the first book of the series.
"[2] She collaborates, and frequently butts heads, with Inspector Oscar Piper, a high-ranking homicide detective in the New York Police Department.
[3] Edna May Oliver starred in the first three screen adaptations, produced by RKO Radio Pictures, and is considered by fans of the film series the definitive Miss Withers.
Author Palmer approved of Oliver's characterization so much that he gave the actress a mention in his Hollywood-based Withers novel The Puzzle of the Happy Hooligan.
The film, a comic mystery released in 1950 as Mrs. O'Malley and Mr. Malone, starred James Whitmore and Marjorie Main as the title characters.