Left: Dead Man’s Plans, by Mignon G. Eberhart (Dell, 1954); cover illustration by Richard M. Powers. Right: Dead Man’s Plans, by Mignon G. Eberhart (Popular Library, 1963); with a truly disconcerting cover painting by William Teason.
Nebraska-born author Eberhart (1899-1996) is said to have had one of the longest—and most profitable—careers of any American crime-fictionist. Her debut novel, The Patient in Room 18 (1929), was selected last year as one of Time magazine’s “100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time.” It was also the first of seven medical mystery novels starring nurse Sarah Keate. Eberhart wrote many more standout standalones, among them The House on the Roof (1935), Danger in the Dark (1937), With This Ring (1941), and Five Passengers from Lisbon (1946). Dead Man’s Plans, about the inheritance of a shipping empire gone dangerously awry, saw print originally in 1952. Eberhart received the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award in 1971. Her final book, Three Days for Emeralds, appeared in 1988.
I am embarrassed to say I’ve never read Eberhart’s work, but intend to remedy that situation soon by picking up her fifth Keate tale, Murder of an Aristocrat, which was reissued in 2019 as part of Otto Penzler’s American Mystery Classics series. The write-up on Aristocrat calls it “a thrilling mystery set in the rarified world of a wealthy Midwestern family … [that] renders its pulse-pounding suspense and puzzling crimes with eloquent prose, exemplifying why Eberhart was widely known, in her day, as ‘the atmosphere queen.”
READ MORE: “Your Guide to Mignon Eberhart: America's Agatha Christie,” by Harry Pearson (Murder & Mayhem).
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