I instantly connected with our narrator, even though she’s a bit of an enigma.

I really loved the writing in this one! It hooked me straight away. There’s only 4, so it’s not a massive post, don’t worry! I’ve reviewed each of the short stories one-by-one. I decided I wanted to read a seasonal book this year and I found this one lurking on my shelf from last year when I also decided I wanted to read a seasonal book… but didn’t. I read this novel as my BookBum Club book for November! Check out this page to find out more about my very own Book Club! James embraces the challenge of the short-story form, and ingeniously weaves the strands of plot, setting, characterisation and surprise to create a satisfying whole within only a few thousand words.įrom the title story about a strained country-house party on Christmas Eve, to another about an illicit affair that ends in murder, and two cases for James’s poet-detective Adam Dalgliesh, each treats the reader to James’s masterfully atmospheric storytelling, always with the lure of a mystery to be solved. While she delights in the secrets that lurk beneath the surface at family gatherings, her Christmas stories also provide tantalizing puzzles to keep the reader guessing. James’s prose illuminates each of these perfectly formed stories, making them ideal reading for the darkest days of the year. Four of the best of these have been drawn from the archives and published here. James was frequently commissioned by newspapers and magazines to write a special short story for Christmas. (Oct.As the acknowledged ‘Queen of Crime’, P.

Agutter also provides a rather aloof rendition of a brief but informative essay by James on short crime fiction. Her tone softens for the title piece, matching its narrator, an elderly popular crime novelist who recalls a Christmas half a century before when she wound up involved in a vicious murder. Her reading of “A Very Commonplace Murder,” a study of a smarmy, porn-addicted clerk who could alter a murder trial but doesn’t, is hard-edged and at times venomous. Weyman’s narration dryly takes note of these, as does Agutter’s in the other two stories. James brightens all four tales with metafictional touches-from unapologetic references to her use of mystery tropes to allusions to Agatha Christie’s works. In “The Boxdale Inheritance,” Dalgliesh investigates an infamous 67-year-old murder case, while “The Twelve Clues of Christmas” presents a younger, newly minted Sergeant Dalgliesh who, on his way to his aunt’s Christmas Eve dinner, is interrupted by a frantic man who has just discovered his uncle’s apparent suicide. Adam Dalgliesh, narrated crisply and with touches of wry humor by reader Weyman, the voice of the poet-detective in previous audiobooks. Two of this quartet of posthumously collected short stories feature James’s New Scotland Yard sleuth, Supt.

The mistletoe murders