Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
It’s common knowledge that Pulitzer Prize winning author Pearl S. Buck was born in Hillsboro, but there’s another female author who may not have set foot in Pocahontas County, but could trace her family roots back to Hillsboro, as well.
Mignon Good Eberhart, who was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, July 6, 1899, was the great-great-granddaughter of Pioneer Richard Hill and Nancy McNeel, who lived in Lobelia.
While he was working on the Richard Hill family history, Harrel McCarty, of Lewisburg, noticed that the family included a famous author with a very successful career.
“It was in the McNeel family record,” he said. “Betsy Edgar did the McNeel family record years and years ago and she briefly had this woman in there. I looked into it a little closer and found out she was pretty famous.”
Eberhart released her first novel in 1929, titled “Patient in Room 18.” Between 1929 and 1988, she released 59 novels total, eight of which were adapted into movies and one was adapted into a Broadway play.
“She was pretty talented,” McCarty said. “I’m reading her first book. I ordered six of her books. She was very articulate and as you read, you can visualize all the circumstances.”
Eberhart spent most of her life in Connecticut and New York, never venturing to West Virginia, although she was aware of her family roots here.
As explained in her biography online, “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.”
She was, in fact, dubbed “America’s Agatha Chris-tie,” by her publisher. Eberhart had a style of her own featuring female protagonists, exotic locations, wealthy characters, suspense and romance.
She grew a large fanbase which included the likes of President Harry Truman, Agatha Christie, Mary Higgins Clark, Ngaio Marsh and Gertrude Stein. In 1971, she was awarded the Mystery Writers of America’s Grand Master Award, and in 1994, the Agatha Award: Malice Domestic Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Much like the Pearl S. Buck Birthplace Museum in Hillsboro, which celebrates the life of its namesake, there is a museum in Eberhart’s birthplace of Lincoln, Nebraska, which houses her book collection and artifacts from her life there.
“She put them on the map, you might say,” McCarty said.
After six decades of writing mystery novels, she retired to Greenwich, Connecticut, and lived there until her death in 1996 at the age of 97.
The following is a list of her novels, and the movies adapted from them.
Sarah Keate series: The Patient in Room 18, While the Patient Slept, The Mystery of Hunting’s End, From This Dark Stairway, Murder by an Aristocrat, Wolf in Man’s Clothing and Man Missing.
Standalone novels: The White Cockatoo; The Dark Garden; The Cases of Susan Dare; The House on the Roof; Fair Warning; Danger in the Dark; The Pattern; The Glass Slipper; Hasty Wedding; The Chiffon Scarf; Brief Return; The Hangman’s Whip; Speak No Evil; With This Ring; Fourth Mystery Book; The Man Next Door; Unidentified Woman; Escape the Night; Wings of Fear; Five Passengers from Lisbon; The White Dress; Another Woman’s House; House of Storm; Hunt with the Hounds; Never Look Back; Dead Men’s Plans; The Unknown Quantity; Postmark Murder; Another Man’s Murder; Melora; Jury of One; The Cup, the Blade or the Gun; Enemy in the House; Run Scared; Call After Midnight; R.S.V.P. Murder; Witness at Large; Woman on the Roof; Message from Hong Kong; El Rancho Rio; Two Little Rich Girls; Murder in Waiting; Nine O’Clock Tide; Danger Money; Family Fortune; Bayou Road; Casa Madrone; Family Affair; Next of Kin; The Patient in Cabin C; Alpine Condo Crossfire; A Fighting Chance; and Three Days for Emeralds.
Film Adaptations: The White Cockatoo, While the Patient Slept, The Murder of Dr Harrigan, Murder by an Aristocrat, The Great Hospital Mystery, The Dark Stairway, The Patient in Room 18, Mystery House and Three’s a Crowd.
I have read all her books, she briefly lived in Valentine Nebraska, my closest town. All her books are nail biters and cannot be solved , like some mystery books, till the last few pages. Thank you for this article.