Americans Sue Talley and Jim Sundean find themselves at the same large, off-season hotel in the south of France. Amidst a constant spooky, atmospheric wind, a series of murders occur; Sue begins to suspect that the deaths are connected to her arrival.
Composition
Eberhart drew on her experiences traveling in the Maritime Alps and staying in just such a hotel in the winter of 1931–32.[2] The name of the town in the book is left intentionally obscure by Eberhart, with the implication that it may be Avignon.[3]
Reception
The White Cockatoo received mixed-to-positive reviews. It was called "a thoroughly excellent thriller" by the Aberdeen Times, and similarly described as above "the ordinary blood and thunder class" by The Sunday Times.[4]
The New York Times described The White Cockatoo as overly convoluted. The reviewer lamented the fact that Sarah Keate, the primary character of Eberhart's previous few books, did not make an appearance: "It might have been better if she had."[5]
Among Eberhart's literary contemporaries, the novel was well received. In a private letter to Fanny Butcher, author Gertrude Stein reported that she was reading The White Cockatoo and was impressed by Eberhart's "xtraordinary" writing skill.[6] Crime novelist Dorothy L. Sayers publicly praised the novel.[7] A 1937 UK edition, published by The Bodley Head, carried a positive quote from Jefferson Farjeon, praising The White Cockatoo for its "most intriguing" cast of characters and its "genuinely thrilling atmosphere."[8]
^Cypert, Rick & James G. McManaway. America's Agatha Christie: Mignon Good Eberhart, Her Life and Works. Selinsgrove: Susquehanna University Press, 2005. p 59.
^Eberhart, Mignon G. The White Cockatoo. The Bodley Head, 1937 (reprint, dust jacket front flap).
^"New Mystery Stories". New York Times. 8 October 1933. p BR12. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times with Index. Accessed 13 March 2018.
^Cypert, Rick. "Foppish, Effeminate, or "a little too handsome": Coded Character Descriptions and Masculinity in the Mystery Novels of Mignon G. Eberhart." Murder in the Closet: Essays on Queer Clues in Crime Fiction Before Stonewall edited by Curtis Evans. McFarland & Company, 2017, p. 191.
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