This image is the cover for the book Next of Kin

Next of Kin

A young heiress turns amateur sleuth when a politician—the brother of the man she loves—is murdered in this Golden age mystery from an Edgar Award winner.

A former senator up for a prestigious cabinet appointment, Stuart Channing had everything to live for—power, influence, a beautiful wife. So when he’s found dead behind the locked door of his study, everyone, from the public to the police, is perplexed. With a party in full swing just hours earlier, there is no end of suspects.

Late to the party, Mady Smith arrives on the arm of Hill “Chan” Channing, the senator’s brother with whom she’s been secretly in love. Mady is stunned by the death of the senator, a man she admired and hoped to work for. Instead, she assigns herself the job of finding the murderer—a task that becomes even more treacherous when the grieving widow makes a play for Chan. Now if only Mady could get to the truth, before the killer gets her.

Praise for Mignon Eberhart

“Eberhart is one of the great ladies of twentieth-century mystery fiction.” —John Jakes, author of the North and South Trilogy

“One of America’s favorite writers.” —Mary Higgins Clark

Mignon G. Eberhart

Mignon G. Eberhart (1899–1996) wrote dozens of mystery novels over nearly sixty years. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, she began writing in high school, swapping English essays with her fellow students in exchange for math homework. She attended Nebraska Wesleyan University, and in the 1920s began writing fiction in her spare time, publishing her first novel, The Patient in Room 18, in 1929. With the follow-up, While the Patient Slept (1931), she won a $5,000 Scotland Yard Prize, and by the end of the 1930s she was one of the most popular female mystery writers on the planet.

Before Agatha Christie ever published a Miss Marple novel, Eberhart wrote romantic crime fiction with female leads. Eight of her books, including While the Patient Slept and Hasty Wedding (1938), were adapted for film. Elected a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master in 1971, Eberhart continued publishing roughly a book a year until the 1980s. Her final novel, Three Days for Emeralds, was published in 1988.

Open Road Media