Description

James Bennett has been invited to stay at White Priory for Christmas among the retinue of the glamorous Hollywood actress Marcia Tait. Her producer, her lover, the playwright for her next hit and her agent are all here, soon to become so many suspects when Tait is found murdered on a cold December morning in the lakeside pavilion. Only the footprints of her discoverer disturb the snow which fell overnight – and which stopped just shortly after Marcia was last seen alive. How did the murderer get in and out of the pavilion without leaving a trace?

When Bennett's uncle, the cantankerous amateur sleuth Sir Henry Merrivale arrives from London to make sense of this impossible crime, the reader is treated to a feast of the author's trademark twists, beguiling false answers and one of the most ingenious solutions in the history of the mystery genre.

About the Author

Carter Dickson was the pseudonym used by John Dickson Carr (1906–1977) for his books featuring Sir Henry Merrivale. Carr was a hugely popular and prolific author of crime fiction, regarded as one of the finest writers of ‘Golden Age’ mysteries. Though born in Pennsylvania, USA, Carr developed a distinctly ‘British’ style to his mystery writing from his time living in England and became one of only two Americans ever admitted to the Detection Club