Sorrow to the Grave

By Dell Shannon

1992

First Published

3.28

Average Rating

234

Number of Pages

7H09M

Audio Length

Long before Stephen King's Annie Wilkes terrorized readers and moviegoers in Misery, Dell Shannon created the unsettling practical nurse Josephine Slaney. In the quiet suburb of Santa Monica in 1963, eighty-eight-year-old Mabel Foster loses her husband to a stroke. Faced with the unhappy prospect of Mrs. Foster having to sell her house and move into a retirement home, her neighbors hire Josephine Slaney to take care of her. At first the immense nurse seems like a godsend - perhaps a bit over-friendly, but the cost of her help is a bargain. Soon it becomes clear, however, that all is not right with Josephine. Mrs. Foster, once bright and alert, falls into torpor much too rapidly for it to be explained away as onrushing senility. As neighbors gossip about Mrs. Foster's daily retreat into quiet seclusion at the request of Josephine, one neighbor, the feisty twenty-seven-year-old Brenda Sheldon, unofficially notifies the police. It is up to detective Dan Valentine to uncover the strange, lethal pattern among Josephine's former patients, and the race is on to stop her before she can strike again.

Avg Rating

3.28

Number of Ratings

5 STARS

11%

4 STARS

28%

3 STARS

44%

2 STARS

11%

1 STARS

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Author

Dell Shannon

Author · 39 books

Pseudonym of Elizabeth Linington. Barbara "Elizabeth" Linington (March 11, 1921 – April 5, 1988) was an American novelist. She was awarded runner-up scrolls for best first mystery novel from the Mystery Writers of America for her 1960 novel, Case Pending, which introduced her most popular series character, LAPD Homicide Lieutenant Luis Mendoza. Her 1961 book, Nightmare, and her 1962 novel, Knave of Hearts, another entry in the Mendoza series, were both nominated for Edgars in the Best Novel category. Regarded as the "Queen of the Procedurals," she was one of the first women to write police procedurals—a male-dominated genre of police-story writing. Besides crime, Linington also took interest in archaeology, the occult, gemstones, antique weapons and languages. Linington was also a conservative political activist who was an active member of the John Birch Society