The Wintringham Mystery: Cicely Disappears

(Paperback)

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Republished for the first time in nearly 95 years, a classic winter country house mystery by the founder of the Detection Club, with a twist that even Agatha Christie couldnt solve!
Stephen Munro, a demobbed army officer, reconciles himself to taking a job as a footman to make ends meet. Employed at Wintringham Hall, the delightful but decaying Sussex country residence of the elderly Lady Susan Carey, his first task entails welcoming her eccentric guests to a weekend house-party, at which her bombastic nephew who recognises Stephen from his former life decides that an after-dinner sance would be more entertaining than bridge. Then Cicely disappears!

With Lady Susan reluctant to call the police about what is presumably a childish prank, Stephen and the plucky Pauline Mainwaring take it upon themselves to investigate. But then a suspicious death turns the game into an altogether more serious affair

This classic winter mystery incorporates all the trappings of the Golden Age a rambling country house, a sance, a murder, a room locked on the inside, with servants, suspects and alibis, a romance and an ingenious puzzle.

First published as a 30-part newspaper serial in 1926 the year The Murder of Roger Ackroyd was published, The Wintringham Mystery was written by Anthony Berkeley, founder of the famous Detection Club. Also known as Cicely Disappears, the Daily Mirror ran the story as a competition with a prize of 500 (equivalent to 30,000 today) for anyone who guessed the solution correctly. Nobody did even Agatha Christie entered and couldnt solve it. Can you

Reviews

Detection and crime at its wittiest all Berkeleys stories are amusing, intriguing and he is a master of the final twist.
Agatha Christie

Anthony Berkeley is the supreme master not of the twist but of the double-twist. Milward Kennedy in the Sunday Times

Author Bio

Anthony Berkeley was a pen name of Anthony Berkeley Cox (1893-1971), one of the most important figures in the history of British crime fiction. Many of his novels feature the amateur criminologist Roger Sheringham. As well as being the author of many classic detective stories, Berkeley was the founder of the prestigious Detection Club for the finest crime writers.