Man Missing

Sarah Keate #7

by Mignon G. Eberhart

The eminently capable Sarah Keate is an impeccable nurse. But when one of her patients, the handsome Lieutenant Parly, is found murdered in his bed, she must become a consummate detective as well. A top-notch mystery novel--out of print for several years--by a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Thriller

189 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1954

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

[tortoise dreams · Rating 4 out of 5]

The seventh and final Nurse Sarah Keate mystery novel (the first was in 1929!) where she's doing temporary duty as an emergency civilian nurse in a naval hospital in Nevada during the Korean War. Here Nurse Keate is on her own (good friend Detective Lance O'Leary disappeared without a trace after the fourth installment in the series) and has to do the requisite investigation, solving, explication, and summation herself. The story is needlessly complicated, there's a loss of energy at times, and one character is a total ninny, but I was kept reading right along and the book is short. Nurse Keate does once again fall into mortal peril and have to be rescued by a brave and handsome young officer. There's also the usual young couple in love guaranteeing them plot armor, but no cat this time. Nurse Keate is a wonderful character, a bit cranky and sharp tongued, she's not young, slender, pretty, or even brilliant. No men chase her even though she's a nurse. But she is determined, brave as she can be, and a dedicated medical professional. Having read all the novels I'll be digging out her short stories next ... . [3½★]

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Gordie LaChance · Rating 3 out of 5]

A novel about a several murders on a Navy base. The main character (who appears in a series of books by this author) is a nurse who is visiting the base commander and his wife. The first murder happens while she is filling in for a naval nurse on the night shift.

I had just read Mignon G. Eberhart's excellent "Wings of Fear" and had high hopes for this one. I did enjoy reading it well enough but it was a bit of a disappointment compared to that novel. I didn't really care for any of the characters other than "Buffalo Bill". The mystery aspect was decent enough but not super compelling. The prose did not flow as smoothly as I would have liked based on my expectations.

A decent but likely forgettable read.

[Roger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Starts out good, but it gets a little over-complicated with another murder instead of a straight-forward whodunnit which I prefer. The setting on a military base is interesting. There are several clues but lots of theories and dead ends.

[Rick Mills · Rating 5 out of 5]

Major characters:
Lieutenant Parly, hospital patient
Marine Sgt. Bill "Buffalo" Brown, hospital patient
Ensign Smith, hospital patient
Ensign Sally Wilson, a nurse
Capt. Harry Somers, base Commanding Officer (CO).
Kitty Somers, his wife
--- Jenson, a corpsman
Cmdr. Jim Warring, Executive Officer (XO)
Colonel Sinclair, CO of Marines
Marie Sinclair, his wife
Wanaha Bonanza "Bonny" Winters, Parly's date
Jack Lewis, electrician
Nurse Sarah Keate

Locale: Naval base in the desert, unnamed location but sounds like Nevada

Synopsis: Nurse Sarah Keate is serving as a temporary civilian nurse at the Naval Ammunition Depot near (fictional) Wanaha City. One night after visiting hours, she glimpses a man leaving her wing, only seeing his shoulder boards with three stripes (Commander rank). She finds one of her patients, Lt. Parly, is dead, his throat cut. In the next room, patient Marine Sergeant Bill "Buffalo" Brown seems to know something but is not telling.

Sarah is living on base as a guest of Captain Harry Somers and his wife Kitty Somers. As an officer, he has the privilege of living in housing on "The Row". The Row is a village unto itself, separate from the enlisted men's area by a guarded wall. The search is on for the "Missing Man" who was seen leaving the hospital. As The Row is closed and guarded, he must be inside.

Sarah finds a connection between Parly and one of her nurses, Ensign Sally Wilson. She finds Sally is a widow - her late husband, Johnny Wilson, reportedly died in a plane crash. His body was never identified, and $30K being transported was missing. Years have passed, and now Sally has a boyfriend, Commander Jim Warring.

Sarah suspects that Johnny Wilson is alive, and someone else's body was in the crashed plane. Suspicion alternates between Johnny and Sally as being the murderer, when a second murder occurs.

Review: This entire story takes place on a military base, and we come to know the routine and the rigid segregation between officers and enlistees. The story held my attention, even though I am unfamiliar with military practice. The suspense builds throughout. The common closed-environment of a mystery story (snowbound train, island, etc.) is here portrayed by "The Row", a closed and walled area inside a closed and walled naval base, which was a clever place to contain the characters.

I had to look up a list of ranks to understand the hierarchy:

Here are the ranks in the story, in descending order:
Captain
Commander
Lieutenant Commander
Lieutenant
Ensign

Some abbreviations to know:
B.O.Q. Bachelor Officer's Quarters
C.O. Commanding Officer
N.A.D. Naval Ammunition Depot
O.D. Officer of the Day
X.O. Executive Officer

For additional reviews indexed by author, please visit The Mystillery Blog and try The Mystillery Reading Challenges!

[Victoria Mixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eberhart's great--vivid writing, specific expertise (nursing and living on a Navy munitions base), pumping tension. And apparently she cranked these things out pretty regularly. The cover blurb says she wrote thirty of them.

The only thing is she, sort of, cheated. Yes, she put the culprit up there in the first few pages, following the Rule of Fair Play laid down for mysteries by the greats (Hillary Waugh among them). But she didn't show them. She just mentioned them in passing in a single sentence and not even by name. Then she didn't bring them onstage in person until nearly the very end of the novel, and even though she played a nice little sleight of hand directing the reader away from their identity, it still wasn't enough.

So by the time they turn out to be the solution, the build-up of tension just doesn't justify the rather limp revelation, "Of course it was them."

Of course? Uh, YEAH.

[robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is well written, the characters are well-drawn and consistent; the scenery is beautifully described, and the description of the military base and the life led there by the men and their wives seems really realistic.

BUT. the entire plot relies on one of the main characters being the most complete mutt, the sort who martyrs themselves for what turns out to be NO good reason. The entire story goes away without that, so fine. But why this character didn't get shaken half to death by those who loved them is beyond me.

[Brackman1066 · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first of the Eberhardt books. Liked the nurse "detective" very much-Yay for a middle-aged, plus-sized woman with a solid career (and, at least in this novel, not desperate for a man). The setting was interesting, and the mystery was decent.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way too much speculation going on throughout story.