This is only a hill mist, not a real fog. You'll find it'll be perfectly clear when we run down into Fordings. Let's think - were you at the Hunt Ball last year, too?' It is a dark and misty night - isn't it always? - and bachelors Nicholas and Ian are driving to the ball at Fordings, a beautiful concert hall in the countryside. There waits the charming Dilys Maine, and a party buzzing with rumours of one Rosemary Reeve who disappeared on the eve of this event the previous year, not found to this day. With thoughts of the mysterious case ringing in their ears, Dilys and Nicholas strike a stranger on the drive back home, launching a new investigation and unwittingly reviving the search for what really became of Rosemary Reeve. All the hallmarks of the Golden Age mystery are here in this previously unpublished novel by E.C.R. Lorac, boasting the author's characteristically detailed sense of setting and gripping police work.

E. C. R. Lorac was a penname of Edith Caroline Rivett (1894- 1958), who also wrote as Carol Carnac. A Londoner born and bred, she experienced the city during wartime and used her experiences to lend authenticity to her crime writing. Her books include Crossed Skis and Murder by Matchlight, available as British Library Crime Classics.