Before I Wake

A teenage girl and her wicked stepmother battle to the death in this pulp fiction classic from the legendary author of the Mike Shayne Mysteries.
 
Ever since her father wrote to say he had married a woman named Florence, April Haddon has nursed a bitter hatred for her stepmother. Now, years later, when they finally meet, she is not disappointed.
 
With her father dead, April is back in Midhampton to claim her inheritance. Only Florence stands in her way. As April’s legal guardian, Florence seems to relish the control she has over her stepdaughter. But April has her own ways of taking control. She’d kill Florence if she thought she could get away with it—she even says so in her diary. And now it seems she’ll get the chance.
 
Over the next eleven days, April and Florence engage in a vicious battle of wills that leads inexorably to tragedy. But is Florence truly an evil stepmother—or is April truly capable of carrying out her darkest fantasies?
 
First published in 1949, Before I Wake was hailed by the Los Angeles Daily News as “an emotional experience” that “hasn’t been matched in years” with “an incredibly terrifying finish that will . . . knock you for a loop.”
 
Praise for Brett Halliday’s Mike Shayne Mysteries
 
“[Mike Shayne is] one of the best of the tough sleuths.” —The New York Times
 
“Unlike anything else in the genre.” —L. J. Washburn, author of For Whom the Funeral Bell Tolls
 
“Raw, ingenious storytelling . . . Pure pleasure.” —Shane Black, creator of Lethal Weapon and writer/director of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, on Murder Is My Business