In this "Class A mystery" from the golden age of detective fiction, a woman witnesses a murder in the penthouse of her building and becomes a suspect (The New York Times).
It's an invitation Deborah should never have accepted. Tea with Mme. Mary Monroe, the famous opera singer, in her eerie house on the roof of their apartment building. Once there, what can Deborah do but politely agree to accompany the lonely Madame on the piano? But just as the singer is swept up in the strains of Massenet's 'Elégie,' a shot rings out and Madame crumples to the floor. From her seat at the piano, her back to the door, Deborah doesn't see a thing. Instead, she becomes the lead suspect in the hideous crime. An accusation that sends her back up to the top floor for answers, only to discover even greater terrors.
"A terrible tale-very well done. Murders in an apartment house, and a successfully sustained atmosphere of horror. A-1 mystery." -Kirkus Reviews

Mignon G. Eberhart (1899-1996) wrote dozens of mystery novels over nearly sixty years. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, she began writing in high school, swapping English essays with her fellow students in exchange for math homework. She attended Nebraska Wesleyan University, and in the 1920s began writing fiction in her spare time, publishing her first novel, The Patient in Room 18, in 1929. With the follow-up, While the Patient Slept (1931), she won a $5,000 Scotland Yard Prize, and by the end of the 1930s she was one of the most popular female mystery writers on the planet.
Before Agatha Christie ever published a Miss Marple novel, Eberhart wrote romantic crime fiction with female leads. Eight of her books, including While the Patient Slept and Hasty Wedding (1938), were adapted for film. Elected a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master in 1971, Eberhart continued publishing roughly a book a year until the 1980s. Her final novel, Three Days for Emeralds, was published in 1988.