The Case of Jenny Brice

When Mrs. Pitman notices a bloodstained rope and towel and a missing tenant (actress Jennie Brice), she's convinced that there's been a murder in her boarding house. The police, however, say there is no case without a body, so Pitman tries to ferret out the killer on her own.

Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958), born in Allegheny City, Allegheny, was a graduate of Allegheny High School. She was a celebrated and prolific writer of more than 50 murder mysteries, 8 plays, and hundreds of stories and poems. While a nurse in Pittsburgh, she married Dr. Stanley Rinehart, but she started writing in 1903 to earn money after her husband's stock market loss. Her early success led her to purchase a mansion in Sewickley. Rinehart's stage play The Bat (1920) was adapted into film and inspired comic-book writer Bob Crane with his 1939 superhero Batman published by DC Comics. With her sons, Rinehart founded the New York publishing house of Rinehart & Company and served as its director. Rinehart died in New York City; she is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. M. Leone Bracker (1885-1937), born in Rye, New Hampshire, was an illustrator of war posters.