The Cases of Susan Dare

A mystery author finds her knowledge of murder put to practical use. Inside the lovely head of Susan Dare, grisly murder lurks. A mystery author who makes her living providing tidy solutions to imaginary crimes, Dare is enjoying a much-needed vacation when the mood at her host's house turns sour. Ugly secrets lurk in the Frame family's past, and jealousy stirs beneath the surface of their tranquil country estate. Dare makes plans to leave before her hosts turn on each other, but she is too late. On the morning of her departure, a gunshot echoes through the fog. Only a beautiful author with a head full of murder mysteries can pinpoint the killer. In this handful of elegant, classic stories, Mignon Eberhart's amateur detective proves her worth time and time again. Decades before Murder, She Wrote, Eberhart realized that those who write mysteries can solve them too. Review Quote. "Curious cases ... with singularly elusive clues and equally elusive motives ... Eberhart brings out the element of horror to the full." - The New York Times "You can't beat Mignon Eberhart." - New York Herald Tribune "One of the great ladies of twentieth-century mystery fiction." - John Jakes, author of the Kent Family Chronicles Biographical note. Mignon G. Eberhart (1899-1996) wrote dozens of mystery novels over a nearly six decade-long career. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, she began writing in high school, trading English essays to 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 1930's was one of the most popular female mystery writers on the planet. Before Agatha Christie ever published a Miss Marple novel, Eberhart was writing romantic crime fiction with female leads. Eight of her books, including While the Patient Slept and Hasty Wedding (1938) were adapted as films. Made a Mystery Writers of America grandmaster in 1971, Eberhart continued publishing roughly a book a year until the 1980s. Her final novel Three Days for Emeralds, was published in 1988.