The Cut Direct is a 1938 novel by American writer Phoebe Atwood Taylor using the pseudonum as Alice Tilton.

He's saved by brassy young Margie and her muscular boyfriend Cuff, but he promptly escapes them and is knocked down by another car.

Witherall assembles a crew including the dead man's secretary, the lovely Miss Dallas Tring, two neighbors, Stanton Kaye, and dotty housewife Mrs. Price (who owns the fatal carving knife), whose new maid is Margie.

Together, the group races around Dalton in pursuit of clues and suspects, comes dangerously close to the second murder, and resolves matters by delivering the criminals to the police complete with confessions.

A murder occurs under embarrassing circumstances, and Leonidas forms a motley crew of assistants together in order to track down clues, chase around the town, and solve the mystery.