The Sarah Keate Mysteries

The Patient in Room 18 is a 1929 mystery novel written by Mignon G. Eberhart. Eberhart's first published novel, it follows the adventures of nurse Sarah Keate, who would later appear in six more of Eberhart's works, and became one of the most popular mystery characters of the time.

The Sand Hills of Nebraska, where Mignon G. Eberhart lived as a newlywed, inspired the setting of this 1930 chiller. Smack in the middle of the rolling desolation is Hunting’s End, a weekend lodge owned by the rich Kingery family. Mignon Eberhart manages to give her audience a real sense of the near-panic and claustrophobia among the guests at Hunting’s End, all of whom know each other–but do not like each other, revealed in the keen observations of our narrator, Nurse Keate. Her characters are quite well-defined–and many of them are quite unpleasant.

In this vintage locked-room murder-mystery, Nurse Sarah Keate is assigned to the at-home care of a man who recently had a stroke. While he is unconscious, on a dark and stormy night, a murder takes place in his bedroom. With family members and potential heirs confined to the house for several days, additional murders occur while the nurse and detective Lance O’Leary, work on solving the case.