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The Nurse Sarah Keate series:
1. The Patient in Room 18
2. The Mystery of Hunting's End
3. While the Patient Slept
4. From This Dark Stairway
5. Murder by an Aristocrat (a.p.a. Murder of My Patient)
6. Wolf in Mans Clothing
7. Man Missing
About the author: Mignon Good (1899-1996) was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1929 her first crime novel was published featuring 'Sarah Keate', a nurse and 'Lance O'Leary', a police detective. This couple appeared in another four novels. Over the next forty years she wrote a novel nearly every year. In 1971 she won the Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America. (from Goodreads)
Major characters:
- Nurse Sarah Keate
- Nurse Drue Cable
- Craig Brent, shooting victim, Drue Cable's ex
- Conrad Brent, father of Craig
- Alexia Senour Brent, wife of Conrad
- Nicky Senour, Alexia's twin brother
- Peter Huber, a house guest
- Dr. Claud Chivery
- Maud Chivery, his wife
- Anna Haub, maid
- William Beevens, the butler
- Lt. Nugent of the police
Locale: The Berkshire mountains in western Massachusetts
Synopsis: World War II is in progress. Nurses Drue Cable and Sarah Keate are assigned a private duty case at the Brent mansion in western Massachusetts. Upon arrival, Sarah is startled to find that Drue already knows everyone in the household - and most of them are hostile to her. They are taken to the patient, Craig Brent, recovering from a minor bullet wound to the shoulder; and Sarah is again startled to find that Craig and Drue not only know each other, but were once married.
Craig's father, Conrad Brent, insists that Drue leave immediately, but she convinces them to allow her to spend the night with their patient. The next shock is that Conrad's wife turns out to be the former Alexia Senour, who was once engaged to Craig - only to have that engagement broken when he took up with Drue. It seems Alexia was enacting her revenge by taking hold of Craig's father - and likely his vast estate.
Conrad takes ill during the night. He has a heart condition which requires digitalis, and as it cannot be readily found, Drue administers some from her supply by hypodermic. Conrad collapses and dies instantly, and it appears Drue had intentionally murdered him to remove an obstacle to her getting back together with Craig.
The backstory is they had a spontaneous marriage, and when Craig found he could not take military pilot training as a married man, got divorced so he could get the training; intended to remarry after the war.
Review:
This was written while WWII was still ramping up, and it shows. We have lots of talk of German submarines, escaped sailors, and even references to the real-life Nazi saboteurs who landed on Long Island, NY.
The romantic escapades are a bit much, with everyone involved with someone else, and the particularly nasty revenge-marriage of Alexia.
The health care system during the 1940's is some different from today. One character gets a broken arm and was admitted to the hospital for five weeks. Meanwhile, Craig Brent gets shot, never goes to the hospital, has the bullet removed in his bedroom by the local G.P. and gets two private duty nurses all the way from New York.
The wrap-up scenes in the Chivery cottage are a bit melodramatic with lots of running up and down stairs, and Nurse Keate even engaging in some gunplay.
The logistics of the Craig murder are pretty clever but a stretch to believe - they reminded me of some of the weird solutions in Agatha Christie.
This book contains an actual MacGuffin: The Frederic Miller checks, which we never get a look at.
The book title contains a spoiler in itself, and gives away one of the murderers.
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