Mignon G. Eberhart had a long career that brought her the Grand Masters Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America. She died at the age of ninety-seven in 1996. In a career spanning more than a half century she acquired a legion of readers for such well-crafted, atmospheric mysteries as The White Cockatoo, From This Dark Stairway, The Chiffon Scarf, and Woman on the Roof.

On a blustery February day Sarah Keate arrives at a gloomy mansion to nurse old Adolph Federie, bedbound after a stroke. Meeting the patient sets off an alarm inside her, but fleeing the house is impossible. The redoubtable red-haired nurse is stuck there with a strange coterie and a black cat named Genevieve. Originally published in 1930, a year after her debut mystery novel The Patient in Room 18, While the Patient Slept strengthened Mignon G. Eberhart's hold on fame. In a career spanning more than a half century Mignon G. Eberhart has acquired a legion of readers for such well-crafted, atmospheric mysteries as The White Cockatoo, From This Dark Stairway, The Chiffon Scarf, and Woman on the Roof.