Author Marie Belloc Lowndes is a brand-new addition to the Crime Classics series, author of Letty Lynton and Another Man’s Wife. This is a thrilling courtroom mystery exploring the bitter effects of murder and its aftermath on the accused and those closest to them. Lowndes has produced over forty novels in all - mainly mysteries, well-plotted and on occasion based on real-life crime.

“[Belloc Lowndes] brings to the making of a mystery a literary sense and an imagination that puts life into the tale and into the readers.”
– The Observer.

An enigmatic young woman named Laura Dousland stands on trial for murder, accused of poisoning her elderly husband Fordish. It seems clear that the poison was delivered in a flask of Chianti with supper, but according to the couple’s servant in the witness-box, the flask disappeared the night Fordish died and all attempts to trace it have come to nothing. The jury delivers its verdict, but this is just the end of the beginning of Marie Belloc Lowndes’ gripping story.

First published in 1934, this exquisitely crafted novel blends the tenets of a traditional mystery with an exploration of the psychological impact of death, accusation, guilt and justice in the aftermath of murder.

 

Publication date: 10/05/21