Hasty Wedding

by Mignon G. Eberhart

Right after her wedding, Dorcas, the bride, is questioned by the police in regard to the murder of Ronald Drew, her former boyfriend

Genres: Mystery, Fiction

175 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1938

About the author

Mignon Good (1899-1996) was born in Lincoln, Nebraska. She studied at Nebraska Wesleyan University from 1917 to 1920. In 1923 she married Alanson C. Eberhart, a civil engineer. After working as a freelance journalist, she decided to become a full-time writer. In 1929 her first crime novel was published featuring 'Sarah Keate', a nurse and 'Lance O'Leary', a police detective. This couple appeared in another four novels. In the Forties, she and her husband divorced. She married John Hazen Perry in 1946 but two years later she divorced him and remarried her first husband. Over the next forty years she wrote a novel nearly every year. In 1971 she won the Grand Master award from the Mystery Writers of America. She also wrote many short stories featuring banker/amateur sleuth James Wickwire (who could be considered a precursor to Emma Lathen's John Putnam Thatcher) and mystery writer/amateur sleuth Susan Dare.

Reviews

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hasty Wedding is a novel written by Mignon Eberhart in 1938. Not only have I never heard of the book before, but I had never heard of the author either so I was surprised to read that she had one of the longest careers among major American mystery writers, from the 1920s until the 1980s. If she had one of the longest careers in America I certainly wasn't paying attention. I was also surprised to read that she was born in 1899 and died in 1996, not too many people, American or other live to be 97. Mignonette Good was born July 6, 1899, in Lincoln, Nebraska, I still haven't decided how to say her first name, whether it is Mignon or Mignonette. As a teenager, Good often wrote short stories and novels to occupy herself, as a teenager I read short stores and novels to occupy myself. That and get ready for Christmas. From 1917 to 1920, she attended Nebraska Wesleyan University, but did not complete the coursework for a degree. I didn't know women went to college in 1917 until I read that. In 1923, she married Alanson Clyde Eberhart, and began writing short stories to combat boredom. I still read to combat boredom, that and the Christmas decorating. In 1929, she published her first novel, The Patient in Room 18. Her second novel, While the Patient Slept, received the $5000 Scotland Yard Prize in 1931. I wonder if it is possible to find these novels? I didn't look for them yet. Four years later, her alma mater presented her with an honorary doctorate, which was nice of them I suppose. Then I read this:

"By the end of the 1930s, Eberhart had become the leading female crime novelist in the United States and was one of the highest-paid female crime novelists in the world, next to Agatha Christie. Known as "America's Agatha Christie," she wrote a total of 59 novels, the last published in 1988, shortly before her 89th birthday. Eight of her novels were adapted as movies, beginning in 1935 with While the Patient Slept. The last adaptation, based on the book Hasty Wedding, was the movie Three's a Crowd, released in 1945."

I am amazed that I have never heard of the person who was the leading female crime novelist here and was still writing until 1988. Nothing of hers has ever come my way and I've never seen a movie based on her books, that part isn't as amazing, I'm usually reading when other people are watching movies. Ok, this next part is just sort of well, I guess silly is the word I'll use:

"After 20 years of marriage, she divorced Alanson Eberhart, and in 1946 married John Hazen Perry. But within two years, she had divorced Perry and remarried Eberhart. The Eberharts remained married until his death in 1974."

I'm not sure what to even say about that except perhaps what a lot of extra work and money to wind up with the same person you were with in the first place. One more thing then I'll get to the book, I promise.

"Her works often featured female heroines, and tended to include exotic locations, wealthy characters, and suspense and romance. Her characterization is good, and her characters always have "genuine and believable motives for everything they do." Her "writing is spare but almost lyrical."

Now reading that I will agree that our novel "Hasty Wedding" definitely has a female heroine, wealthy characters, and not wealthy ones for that matter, suspense and romance. As for exotic locations, I've never been to Chicago but it doesn't sound exotic to me. Exotic sounds hot, Chicago sounds cold, I'll take Chicago, without all the big buildings and lots and lots of people that is. Exotic or not, I loved this book. I had so much fun reading this story, even though I don't know if everything they did was genuine and believable, and I was rather confused with all the haste with the wedding in the first place, it certainly was entertaining. We have the female heroine, Dorcas Whipple, who lives in a Chicago mansion with her always delicate, always weak, always sick and I never figure out why mother, it's like she always has been and always will be, but she still outlives everyone else around her. We are told of her:

"Cary had been thirty, fragile, and appealing in her gentle fragility, when Dorcas was born. She was now fifty-four and still rather childish and still fragile and gentle."

So we have Dorcas the wealthy heroine, Cary her fragile mother, and then there is Sophie. Sophie had been the second and younger wife of Pennyforth Whipple's brother, Tom. We're told:

"he had made and lost at least three fortunes and it was unfortunately during the losing of the third that he had died."

Because of his death we have Sophie living with Dorcas and Cary, doing just about everything. It is Sophie who has a flair for clothes and therefore picks the wedding dress, Sophie handles the photographers, the newspapers, the guests. Sophie packs the trunks, organizes the rooms, takes care of the meals, planning them anyway. So there are our three women living together in the exotic Chicago mansion with a bunch of servants. The story begins with Dorcas getting her final fitting of the dress for her upcoming wedding. This was the final fitting, the wedding would take place the next day. That was in March. We're told that in January Dorcas was all but engaged to Ronald. Then there is this:

"In February her mother roused to the state of affairs, came home to Chicago and rallied all her cohorts. On March eleventh Dorcas stood before the mirror and looked at herself in her wedding gown, mistily through the white veil, and the image it gave back to her was unreal and ethereal in quality-as Dorcas herself was not.

It was the final and last fitting. The wedding was at noon the next day and the man she was marrying was not Ronald Drew."

We're told that even though she defended Ronald hotly, they were all against him and she had finally given in because the proof against him had to be admitted. Who all they were who were against him wasn't made clear, but I assume it is her entire family and friends, we're not told what the proof against him is either, although I imagine he wants her money and not her. At least that's my guess. Whatever the reason, she won't be marrying Ronald, she will be marrying Jevan Locke, a man she had known all her life, it was an eminently suitable marriage and it was time she married and took over her rightful responsibilities. So here it is, the night before the wedding, the dress is fitted, the bags are packed, the bridesmaids are ready, Dorcas is in her room getting ready for bed when her phone rings. It is Ronald, he wants to see her one last time, he wants her to meet him at the corner in a taxi, he only wants to spend ten minutes with her, she agrees and goes to meet him.

So, do you want to guess what happens then? Maybe she tries to go but is stopped by Sophie who is everywhere all the time, or she meets Ronald, realizes she can't marry Jevan and elopes that night. Perhaps after spending a little more time with him she decides that her mother was right and she was crazy to ever get involved with him. I guess she could just disappear on the way to Ronald never to be seen again, but that would end the book rather early. Three people die during the book, so at that rate it couldn't have been a much longer novel in the first place. Whatever happens, it's up to you to find out for yourself, if you can find the book at all, I only have it because one of the older members of my church who was cleaning out his attic found it and gave it to me, whether you can just walk into a book store and find it I have no idea, I doubt it though. I loved this book, I had so much fun reading it, even if there were a few things that seemed a little silly, I still loved it. I'm off to find my next book. Happy reading.

[Yibbie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn’t really all that fond of this little mystery. Oh, as I got closer to the end I could barely put it down, and I was completely misled as to the actual culprit, but there were a few things that I just didn’t enjoy about it.
First, the heroine was so pathetically weak, hopelessly oblivious, and perpetually muddled. I don’t usually mind the helpless heroines of Victorian crime fiction, but this one made some of those characters look positively strong-willed. Okay, everyone, and I do mean everyone, was giving her horrible advice, but you’d think she could make up her mind about something eventually. The detective was even annoying. He just randomly shows up, bullies everyone, and disappears. Then pops back in just to bully some more. Then the supposedly wise hero was really annoying also, but I’ll leave that up to you to figure out.
Then more read like a dime a dozen romance than a mystery story. It has all the elements of the former, love triangle, fortune hunters, forced marriages, and random kissing scenes (lots of those). It was written in 1938 so it is relatively discreet, but still, I found it annoying.
There were also several swear words, and there were numerous interjections using heaven or the Lord’s name.
So overall I didn’t like it very much.

[Rob Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

See my previous review of Peter Dickinson’s.”Hindsight” for my current caveats about mysteries in general. They all apply here.

Those qualms aside, this is a keep-you-guessing story of an uppercrust 1930s Chicago heiress who on the eve of her wedding to a man she does not love receives a call from the man she does begging her to see him one last time. She does and deadly complications ensue.

I believe a really great book requires someone you like and root for. While the reader of this book essentially hopes the best for its heroine, she is so weak-willed, always letting everyone—her mother, her best friend, the men on her life—order her around, barely ever even finishing a sentence, that it’s hard to understand why so many men fall in love with her or for the reader to not just feel frustrated with her.

Still, an enjoyable quick classic-type whodunnit with many unexpected twists and turns.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a mildly ridiculous book about characters named Dorcas, Ronald, and Jevan, lol, but quite enjoyable all the same. Even in the 1930s, those were very unusual names!

[Janga · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the joys of my ereader is rereading books that I read and enjoyed years ago. I haven't read Eberhart in years, but I have been having fun with a binge on her books recently. They hold up fairly well except for some character constantly smoking. I started with this one because I remembered it best. Now if only some publisher would make the books of Rae Foley and Leslie Ford available in digital format, I would be a really happy reader.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great, primarily because the protagonist is a limp dishrag of a thing, there's no chemistry whatsoever between her and her supposed love interest, and almost everybody from her down to the policeman behaved like characters in a murder mystery rather than actual people (among other things, she kept going into dark rooms for no good reason, and then would "sense" someone was there ... this happened at least three times, and 2/3 of the time someone would be killed in front of her but of course she couldn't report who did it, because of the dark room problem).

I held out hope for three stars in case the ending pulled it all together, but no, it was kind of a dumb book with unbelievable characters doing stupid and unconvincing things, until the author reveals the murderer and it's mercifully over.

And I really can't emphasize enough what a giant soft flop of a protagonist Dorcas is. She has no agency whatsoever, as if this book were a model of how women were supposed to behave, according to insert-name-of-sexist-leader-here. I know it was the 30s, but look at Tuppence or Miss Marple? They wouldn't put up with this. Raggedy Ann had more backbone, and you could literally fold her up and put her in your pocket.

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful.)

[Eleanor Donovan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in a different era, Dorcas, the "bride" annoyed me by her passivity and timidity.. In the beginning, I thought I knew the murderer, but there was only a minor hint, and no more so was surprised at the end.
Not sure if I liked it or not.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this isn’t a first in series, it was my introduction to this vintage-era author, an American contemporary of Christie, Marsh and Ellery Queen.

This story is set in Chicago high-society in the 1930s and is a very matter-of-fact glimpse into that lifestyle, similar to early EQ novels. The puzzle itself is pretty standard, but entertaining. And the reader is thrown off to a slight degree because Eberhart wrote mainly stand-alone novels, so there was no knowing “good guys” from “bad guys” because of continuing characters.

The past progressive verb tense (was taking, were talking) put me in mind of Christie’s Sad Cypress and was slightly irritating. Christie didn’t regularly use that, and perhaps Eberhart didn’t either.

I have a few more Eberhart titles on my shelves so I’ll be reading at least those – and who knows where it will go from there?

Read this if: you’re a fan of the society settings of early Ellery Queen novels; or you’re a Chicago fan and would enjoy a glimpse into the city in 1930s.

4 stars

[Otto Penzler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eberhart tells the story of a beautiful couple on the eve of “happily ever after” when (seemingly out of nowhere) the bride is accused of murder. The victim is her ex-lover, and without an alibi and all kinds of motive, she becomes the main suspect…until the killer finds a new target.
Mignon Eberhart was a literary sensation for five decades. Deemed the founder of romantic suspense, Eberhart is the queen of creating characters with depth and complexity- giving her stories the kind of life that readers seek whilst choosing a good mystery.

[Cheryl Bradley · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was OK. The beginning was interesting, but it got dull after the halfway point.

[Sue · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1937 about an upper class Chicago family. Interesting look at social mores and mystery writing in the 30's. A weak who-done-it but good characterizations.