The Patient in Room 18

Mignon G. Eberhart made her debut in 1929 with this hospital mystery, the book that introduced nurse Sarah Keate and detective Lance O’Leary and set the pattern for the “had I but known” school of crime fiction. At St. Ann’s, a fortune in radium goes missing from a guarded ward, a patient dies under strange circumstances, and a young nurse vanishes into the night. Sarah Keate, sharp-tongued and steadier than most, tells the story from inside the wards, catching the small wrong details that others overlook while O’Leary works the case. Eberhart, later called America’s Agatha Christie, blends clinical atmosphere with a genuine puzzle. Free PDF and EPUB editions are available here.