Ethel Lina White: While She Sleeps

Miss Loveapple woke with a smile. She had slept well; her digestion was good – her conscience clear; and she had not an enemy in the world.
There was nothing to warn her that, within the next hour, she would be selected as a victim to be murdered.

Miss Loveapple is lucky, knows she is lucky, and enjoys the security that luck brings her. She grew up wanting to own three houses, and achieved that aim with a fortunate sweepstake win. She is healthily good-looking in an outdoorsy sort of way. She has the lifelong devotion of her maid Elsie and a dog and cat that they both dote upon.

However, the workings of luck are more random than she believes, and her name gets chosen out of the phonebook by a murderer. The murder needs to be at a certain time, though, and unbeknownst to the killer, Miss Loveapple may or may not meet her obligations.

Over the following fortnight, chance decision follows chance decision, edging Miss Loveapple closer or further away from her appointment with murder until we arrive at the fateful evening – obviously things go right to the wire.

A breezily readable thriller, with an amiably brisk heroine, a likeable sidekick in Elsie the maid, and a not-too-heavy moral about the difference between luck and fortune. Fun and not too taxing.

Ethel Lina White
While She Sleeps
First published 1940 by Collins
This edition Business and Leadership Publishing
Source: Amazon