“The denouement is intensely dramatic and completely satisfying” in this romantic thriller of a new wife suspected of murder in the Louisiana bayou (The New York Times).
Married in haste to the wealthy Eric Chatonier and whisked away to his plantation home in the bayou country near New Orleans, Sophronia—Rony—is unprepared for the chilly reception of her new husband’s family. Worse, is the accusation by family friend Judge Henry Yarrow that the formerly penniless Rony is a fortune hunter. Even Eric has suddenly cooled toward her, even more so when Henry is found murdered in his family home. Accused of the judge’s demise, Rony is trapped in a terrifying household—and an unsettling marriage—she cannot escape. Until the dark truth is discovered. . . .
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.