Mignon G. Eberhart, 1899-1996, was a prolific author of mysteries and romantic suspense. Her long career began in 1929 with a mystery featuring Sara/Sally Keate, a nurse in New York, who was Eberhart’s only series character. Keate featured in seven books. The rest of Eberhart’s prodigious output consisted of 53 stand-alone novels and several collections of short stories. She received the Grand Master Award from Mystery Writers of America in 1971.
Eberhart’s tenth book, Fair Warning (Amereon, 1936), is a brooding atmospheric tale of a young woman, alone in the world, married to a wealthy sadistic older man. Marcia Godden is worn down after three years of cruelty from her husband and his sister Beatrice. She sees a path to freedom when her husband Ivan is badly injured in a vehicle accident, only to see it evaporate when he survives. The book opens on the day he is released after a month in hospital. Marcia is devastated by his homecoming, wishing for a little more time to collect the psychological strength she needs to leave. The son of their closest neighbor is urging her to divorce Ivan and marry him. She is so cowed that she does not see how she can stand up to her husband.
Ivan is unaffected by his near-death experience; he demonstrates on his first day home that he is prepared to continue tormenting his defenseless wife. Fortunately Marcia and Beatrice have been invited to a neighbor’s for dinner so she can avoid him for a few hours. Marcia is so distraught over having to deal with Ivan again that she is late leaving the house. She stops in the library, where her husband was sitting, and finds him on the floor with a large knife in his chest. He dies while she is trying to staunch the bloodflow.
While Ivan was roundly disliked by nearly everyone who knew him, Marcia is the only one without an alibi. The servants were all in each other’s presence at the crucial time. Beatrice was at the neighbor’s house and everyone there could vouch for the others. However Inspector Jacob Wait noted the unlocked and open French doors in the library that led outdoors and saw that anyone could have entered the house unseen.
The strongest element here is the masterful creation of a suspense-filled story. The setting is subtly ominous and threatening, reaching an almost unbearable pitch at two or three points. Powerful writing, even this early in her career. This book is good as romantic suspense, not so successful as a mystery. Who did it was easy to determine. Eberhart’s plotting improved over time; I didn’t see the same issue with one of her later books, reviewed here: https://happinessisabook.com/fridays-forgotten-book-hunt-with-the-hounds-by-mignon-g-eberhart/. Fair Warning is still worth reading, especially to watch how an author’s writing changes over the span of 60 years.