2-(2-Methylbenzoyl)benzoic acid: catemeric hydrogen bonding in a γ-keto acidThis paper is dedicated to the memory of HWT; he was a wonderful mentor, teacher and friend at Rutgers University-Newark for over 44 years.

The crystal structure of the title compound, C15H12O3, displays catemeric aggregation involving O—H...O hydrogen bonds progressing from the carboxyl group of one molecule to the ketone O atom of another glide-related neighbor. The molecule is twisted, with the toluene 80.61 (3)° out of plane with respect to the phenyl group of the benzoic acid. The acid group makes a dihedral angle of 13.79 (14)° with the attached phenyl ring. The molecules are achiral, but the space group glide planes create alternating conformational chirality in the chain units. The four hydrogen-bonding chains progress along [001] in an A—A—B—B pattern (right-to-left versus left-to-right), and are related to each other by the center of symmetry at (0.5, 0.5, 0.5) in the chosen cell. There is one close contact (2.54 Å) between a phenyl H atom and the acid carbonyl from a symmetry-related molecule