Cressida: No Mystery

A week of love and laughter is promised for the run-up to Christmas Day - it's looking like this year will be unforgettable...

Family and friends are gathered to celebrate the festive season and the exciting announcement of heiress Lizzie Bowden's engagement. The elegant country house is luxuriously prepared for the week's festivities and while the bright sunshine and crisp cool air flush the cheeks outside, inside the fires are roaring, the tables piled high with food and champagne is being despatched with abandon.

Into this heady atmosphere arrives a surprise guest. Cressida, Lizzie's precocious childhood friend has a sharp wit and sharper fashion, cutting an almost irresistible figure. Instantly becoming the centre of attention, her normally welcome presence is, at this time, a little too attractive for some...

As Christmas Day approaches, tension heightens, nerves fray and patience thins. Will Christmas Day dawn full of joy and festive cheer, or will this year be truly memorable - for all the wrong reasons...?


A fascinating early exploration of relationship dynamics amid the social mores of the time, Cressida: No Mystery documents their unravelling with compassion - and an acerbic humour.  As a contemporary review noted: “The style is original, the characterology masterful, the suspense admirable.”

Marie Belloc Lowndes (1868-1947) wrote over 70 books including true crime, biography, romance, and thrillers  - of which her novels of crime and detection were the most popular. She is best known for The Lodger (1913) based on the Jack the Ripper murders.

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