Reviews

• By Carolyn Chambers Clark, author of CANDY, MURDER & ME

  Although written in the 1930s, this book is a solid mystery that holds up well today. Great descriptions, spooky encounters, and the protagonist's a nurse! What else could one ask for? And...the cover is absolutely stunning! While the Patient Slept

• Gothic overload

  Well, our mystery-reading grandparents certainly loved Gothic overload! Eberhart's offering is very Gothic! Also, I thought that the solution was a bit of a cheat. On the other hand, if you love golden age mysteries, this is a classic one.

• New Author

  I love this series. I had not read anything from this author but I thought the book sounded interesting plus there was a cat. It was an odd book with a number of potential villains. I really liked the nurse because she certainly was not meek.

• Will go to thrift shop

  Too dull for me, had to read for book Club

• Sarah Keate’s nursing case turns into a murder case...

  The house is isolated, run down, and gloomy. The servants are sinister. The family is unpleasant. The guests are weird. The family dog is vicious. The family cat is creepy. The head of the family is unconscious from a stroke, and everyone in the house wants to speak with the old man the minute he comes to. Nurse Keate is at his bedside day and night, and murder unfolds in her very presence... As in every book in this series, Nurse Keate becomes an invaluable assistant to the police. This novel is drenched with nightmarish atmosphere and tense scenes of nameless terror. There’s action aplenty, but somehow the pace feels slow and drawn out, as Eberhart wallows in her frightening situations. Nurse Keate combines supreme competence and reckless courage with a kind of suppressed hysteria. I’m not always comfortable with her jitters. The Nurse Keaton books are early works (this one appeared in 1930), and in my opinion they’re much less polished and engaging than her later mysteries.

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