The Unknown Quantity
About this ebook
Sarah Travers's husband Arthur asked her to meet him in San Francisco, where he's engaged in business related to his oil company, and is shocked to meet his newest employee. Lawyer Jake Dixon looks almost exactly like her husband. Arthur has been contracted by the government for covert work and hired Jake to impersonate him during his absence. He wants Sarah to go along with the deception by traveling with Jake back to their home in New York so that Arthur can complete his secret mission.
But upon arrival, Sarah and Jake receive word that a dead body was found in San Francisco's Presidio Park believed to be Arthur. Fearing for their own lives, the couple continues to act as if Jake is Arthur, until they can learn the truth about the victim's identity. Then Sarah learns that someone has been threatening Arthur, someone dangerous enough to break into her home. And when the Travers's gardener is murdered, the police confront Sarah and uncover Jake's true identity. Now, they are murder suspects, accused of killing Arthur for his wealth.
As Sarah and Jake fight to prove their innocence, they discover some unsettling truths about Arthur's business dealings and relationships . . .
"One of Eberhart's most completely readable mysteries." — The New York Times
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About the author
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.
