There exist, generally speaking, two types of Gialli. The type with the black-gloved serial killer butchering scantily clad fashion models or lewd women, and the type revolving around a bickering and adulterous couples conspiring to murder each other. The classics of the genre are to be found in the first category, while the other type contains a few hidden gems but no real masterpieces.
"La Gatta in Calore" resides in the second category (the adultery/conspiracy category), and despite a few intriguing elements and a compelling narrative structure, I can't refer to it as a hidden treasure, unfortunately. A workaholic man (Silvano Tranquilo - "The Bloodstained Butterfly") neglects his beautiful young wife to the point that he even falls asleep on their one and only romantic night before another business trip. When he returns home again, he finds the dead body of an attractive young man in their garden, and his wife Anna at the kitchen table with a gun in front of her. What has happened here and isn't the husband partially to blame?
The main reason why "La Gatta in Calore" kept my attention is because the story is largely told in flashback-format, and because Eva Czemerys is an attractive and sexy lady! The erotic games she plays with her lover are quite enticing, and there's also a very interesting sequence that explains the peculiar title (Cat in Heat). The pacing is incredibly slow, though, and there nearly isn't enough action. The climax is beyond ridiculous.
