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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:
Huber Kingery, murdered five years prior to story
Matil Kingery, the hostess
Aunt Lucy Kingery, the patient
Miss Sarah Keate, nurse
The guests:
Juilian Barre
Gerald Frawley
Lawrence "Lil" Killian
Newell Morse
Signor José Paggi, opera singer
Signora Helene Paggi, his wife
Terice, Baroness Von Tircum
Lance O'Leary, detective undercover
The staff:
Annette, the cook
Brunker, the manservant
Locale: The Sand Hills, Nebraska
Synopsis: Wealthy socialite Matil Kingery is hosting a strange house party in her "hunting lodge" in desolate Nebraska. Five years ago, the lodge was full and someone shot and killed her father, and the killer never identified. She takes it upon herself to restage the event in the hopes of finding out which one of the guests was the killer, inviting the same assortment of guests and placing them all in the same rooms.
This time there are two new faces. Nurse Sarah Keate, hired to nurse her now-elderly aunt Lucy Kingery; and Detective Lance O'Leary in an undercover role posing as Sarah's friend.
Once everyone is settled in - with one change, Gerald Frawley taking the late Huber Kingery's room, a days-long snowstorm bears in and isolates the party.
Everyone views each other with suspicion - knowing this is really a plot to reveal a killer. Then Gerald Frawley is shot to death - in the same room Huber met his end five years ago. The killer is still among them.
O'Leary and Keate partially solve (method but not the killer's identity) the first set of murders (Huber and Frawley), and it looks like a wrap is imminent, but wait - another murder occurs and we still don't have the answers.
Review: I always enjoy a snowbound house party with a killer on the loose. This story has many similarities to another of my favorites, Deep Lay the Dead by Frederick C. Davis (1942) even including a snowstorm, no electricity or phone, a couple of dead bodies, and a famous musician as one of the guests.
I began to be suspicious when Frawley dies in the same room as Huber, even winding up in the same position. Then Frawley's body disappears, which was a plot twist I was not expecting. Usually when the body disappears, the victim is not really dead - but that was not the case.
The setup is excellent, down to the detailed map. Pairs of rooms, all separated by baths. Much is made of the lock arrangement, which is integral to the plot. Please note the terms 'gallery' and 'balcony' ae used interchangeably.
The Paggis are an enjoyable couple, as are bejewelled Terice, and the servants: crusty Brunker from Central Casting and lush Annette the cook. Barre, Killian, and Morse seemed rather two-dimensional throughout; but then again they are investment bankers.
An enjoyable read when a snowstorm is imminent.
I'm so glad you enjoyed this. I have loved it for such a very long time--I think I was about eight or nine when my grandma sent me that first copy.
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