Jaime Dodson was found outside his wrecked car on a beachside road and woke up in Curtis Point Hospital. Two psychiatrists found him sane before friend and attorney Steve Quentin retained Dr. Curry to regress him with narcosis. They were probing for a piece of lost time in Jaime's mind prior to the crash on the day his sister Sheilah was murdered. She was found in her beach house, beaten with a fire poker. Jaime recalls picking up the weapon and exclaims aloud "I killed her...I killed her!"
Curtis Point Hospital was Sheilah's first major commission as architect. A driven woman who always got her way, she made a lot of enemies, including the contractor and decorator present at the coroner's inquest, and Jaime's fiancé Greta, whom she hated. Jaime also worked for Sheilah, a playboy who kept being arrested for drunk and disorderly. They were gathered for a party the night she died, and the district attorney can find no evidence of wrongdoing. No fingerprints, and his confession under barbiturate inadmissible and forgotten when he awoke. Jaime is free.
Jamie and Greta stay with Steve, despite the town ostracizing them. Jaime is haunted and still seeking that missing time as more buried secrets are revealed - blackmail, armed robbery, international police, and Sheilah cutting Jaime out of her company. She is a shrew anyone would want to bump off - but who actually did it?
If you have a soft spot for amnesia mysteries, this packs a lot of punch into a paperback. There is ample motive for all, and despite Jaime's drugged confession, a tight mystery with a surprise ending.
Helen Nielsen is a solid writer of classic mysteries, including the Simon Drake series and many others such as Detour and The Woman On The Roof, as well as television scripts for Perry Mason and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.
Her work is widely available in print, audio, and eBook format.
1964 / Paperback / 128 pages
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