“A well told and interesting mystery . . . excellent intricacy and with real subtlety of character drawing. . . . One of the best of [Eberhart’s] tales.” —The New York Times
Elizabeth Dakin has reason to fear her older, wealthy husband. Throughout their two-year marriage—a union made in haste after the death of her father—she has been the victim of his alcoholic bouts of rage. She never imagined she had to be afraid for him.
But when she stumbles upon his dead body, suddenly the life they lived in a Jamaican paradise is revealed for the sham that it is. Or so she thinks. For suddenly Elizabeth finds herself the lead suspect in his murder . . .
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.