July 15, 2020
A third return to 1835 London sets two problems for parliamentary reporter Charles Dickens: unmasking a murderer, and clearing himself of an accusation that could put paid to his career and his impending marriage. Nothing says Christmas like caroling outside the countinghouse of Emmanuel Screws, and nothing dampens the Christmas spirit like having a chained corpse fall from an overhead window to the ground before the eyes of Charles and his horrified fellow carolers. Soon after the killjoy is identified as Jacob Harley, Screws' partner, his body inside its coffin vanishes from the custody of the undertaker Dawes. But that's the least of Charles' headaches. He's already scrambling to disprove the allegation of serving maid Madge Porter that he fathered Timothy, the son of Madge's late sister, Lizzie. Moved by the holiday spirit and simple humanity, Charles has taken up the infant and placed him with pregnant actress Julie Aga, the wife of his fellow journalist William Aga. His solicitude for the defenseless child is a distinctly bad look for his fiancee, Kate Hogarth, and a worse one for her father, George, who, as editor of the Morning Chronicle, holds a great deal of power over his employee's future. When the prospective publisher of Sketches by Boz begins to back away from his contract, it seems the only thing that will redeem Dickens is proof that he's not Timothy's father. Oh, and solving what by now is a pair of murders as well. A middling mystery seasoned with period detail and toothless threats to the future success of Charles Dickens.
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August 10, 2020
Set in December 1835, Redmond’s workmanlike third Charles Dickens mystery (after 2019’s Grave Expectations) takes Charles, at that time a journalist, to Hertfordshire, where he encounters a woman who claims that her late sister identified Charles as her baby’s father, and insists he assume the infant’s care. Charles returns with little Timothy to London, where he lodges the boy with friends. The next evening, Charles and his fiancée, Kate Hogarth, are caroling when an elderly man with iron chains around his neck falls to his death from a second-story window. The corpse is Jacob Harley, a moneylender who lived with his business partner, Emmanuel Screws. As Charles seeks to find Timothy’s real father, he investigates Harley’s illegitimate son, the owner of the company that made the chains, and the partners’ mysterious American employee. The heavy-handed links to A Christmas Carol feel superfluous, though Redmond nicely blends period details into the storytelling. Cozy fans should enjoy this seasonal fare. Agent: Laurie McLean, Foreword Literary.
September 14, 2020
A Christmas card provides the starting point for each of the three entertaining novellas, which star a series protagonist from each of the authors, in this welcome anthology. In the title tale, bestseller Meier’s Lucy Stone, a reporter for the Tinker’s Cove, Maine, Penny Saver, is in the midst of renovating her home when she comes across a decades-old Christmas card addressed to a girl, now a deceased adult, with a disturbing message inside related to a crime. Her quest to discover the story behind the card leads her to revelations about a more recent crime. In “Death of a Christmas Carol,” Hollis echoes the plot of the 1949 film A Letter to Three Wives when Hayley Powell, office manager for the Bar Harbor Island Times, and her two best friends receive a collective Christmas card telling them that one of their husbands has run away with a local temptress. “Death of a Christmas Card Crafter” finds Ehrhart’s Pamela Paterson, founder and mainstay of the Arborville, N.J., Knit and Nibble knitting club, investigating the death of a much-loved art teacher and Christmas card designer. All feature appealing characters and straightforward plots. Cozy readers seeking undemanding escape from real-life holiday hoopla will be satisfied. Agents: (for Meier) Meg Ruley and Christina Hogrebe, Jane Rotrosen Agency; (for Ehrhart) Evan Marshall, Evan Marshall Agency.
September 1, 2020
Three Christmas greetings bring clues to murder. Meier's title story presents Lucy Stone on the verge of realizing a lifelong dream. Since three of their four children are grown and living on their own, she wants her carpenter husband, Bill, to knock out the wall between their cramped bedroom and an adjacent room to create a luxurious master suite. As Bill bangs away at the lath and plaster, Lucy finds an antique Christmas card with a nasty message hidden in the baseboard. Lucy's search for the sender circles back to the long-ago murder of a high school student. Although her inquiry has moments of high drama, including a blizzard that shuts down the town, the solution is a letdown. The miserable missive in Hollis' Death of a Christmas Carol is sent by Carol Waterman to three friends: Hayley Powell, food writer for the Island Times; Rosana Moretti, wife of the Times' publisher; and Hayley's friend Mona Barnes, a lobsterwoman. Borrowing from the classic film A Letter to Three Wives, Carol's card reveals her plans to run off with the husband of one of the friends, plans that are foiled by her death. Neither the solving of the mystery nor the unmasking of the errant spouse offers any holiday cheer. Ehrhart's Death of a Christmas Card Crafter tells the sad tale of popular high school art teacher Karma Karling, whom readers never meet before her body is found in a local Christmas tree lot. She leaves behind the last of a Twelve-Days-of-Christmas-themed series of cards featuring not 12 but 13 drummers drumming. Neighbors Pamela Paterson and Bettina Fraser use that extra image to track down Karma's killer--a solution that comes so far out of left field it could have been sent there by Willie Mays. Three tepid treats for the holiday season.
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