The festive season is fast approaching, and Dr Crowe and his young apprentice Scuff are busy, as always, tending London's sick and wounded. This year, however, Crowe is increasingly distracted by memories of a former patient, Eliza Hollister, for whom he cared deeply. When Crowe sees Ellie being bullied by her domineering fiance in the street, he is convinced that she is marrying a man she doesn't love, and he is determined to find out why. Anne Perry's twentieth heart-warming Christmas mystery.