Patrick Quentin

Sequel to A Puzzle for Fools Reformed alcoholic Peter Duluth is trying to make a comeback on Broadway as the producer-director of a script by a newly-discovered playwright. But a deadly drama is being enacted in the reportedly-jinxed and long-uninhabited Dagonet Theater. Apparitions are seen in dressing-room mirrors; rats are set free beneath the boards; and the celebrated coffin scene is played with unfortunate and unwanted realism. Offstage an all-star cast has been assembled. Behind the scenes, a beautiful ghost, a man without a face, and a phantom saboteur are vying for the lead. - synopsis from back cover

Black widow / Patrick Quentin The silent world / Jacques Cousteau with Frederic Dumas [East of Eden]( / John Steinbeck Karen / Marie Killilea The curve and the tusk / Stuart Cloete

A murder mystery set in a mental institution.

Set in middle/upper class Manhattan. When the main character's wife is murdered, suspicion goes from person to person in their families until the last chapter (Good Reads). Andrew Jordan might be called an everyman—if it meant that every man drifts through life in a perpetual haze of boredom, a completely bland creature married to a woman who neither appreciates nor loves him. Even the series of anonymous messages warning him of his wife’s infidelity spark nothing in him except a belief that whatever is wrong must be his fault. Then his wife is murdered, and the meek Andrew is a prime suspect. With no one to turn to, Andrew begins his own investigation, discovering there were more than a few people who had it in for his wife. The more he learns, the more he realizes someone is setting him up for a big fall. And if he doesn’t stand up and prove his innocence, they are going to succeed. (Mysterious Press)