Murder On Christmas Eve: Classic Mysteries for the Festive Season (Vintage Murders)

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Though the murderer, made a mistake and left behind evidence which lead the detective to find out who it was.

In this digital and printed play at home adventure, you'll meet Sir Robert Peel who will set you on your case to solve the festive crime. An entertaining anthology of Christmas-themed mysteries, both from the Golden Age (like GK Chesterton and Margery Allingham) to more modern (Val McDairmid, Ian Ranken), and despite the title, not all of them involve actual murders! Thus discovering the man hateds the Doctor because she has never stopped loving him, therefore is poisoning himself and is going to blame the Doctor and Wife, even if it means he kills himself. However, I did enjoy The footprint in the sky, A wife in a million, The dagger with wings and Cambrice tea.What hits home is that the Detective on the case has an unemployed wife at home who could very easily have been pushed to the same lengths as the suspect in custody. What I enjoyed most is that the stories selected for MURDER ON CHRISTMAS EVE are not just modern, some are classic stories written decades earlier. One person has been arrested, however we still need to hear from anyone who was in the Spenlow House area between 7pm and 11pm on Christmas Eve and may have seen or heard anything suspicious. There is undoubtedly some sense of it shouldn’t happen at this time of year; from a Christmas Truce to a desire to abandon crime for profit amid the good will and peace on earth.

This is the third year where there have been a glut of 'Christmas crime' stories have been published but it's clear that the well is more or less running dry now. This is the third of the Cecily Gayford edited collections of Christmas crime stories I have read and, fo some reason I found it the most disappointing. From a Santa Claus with a grudge to a cat who knows who killed its owner on Christmas Eve, these are stories to enjoy - and be mystified by - in front of a roaring fire, mince pie to hand.So he hires a detective from Scotland Yard to investigate, inviting him to The Santa Claus Club, where throughout the night the target seems to be getting drunker, and drunker until he drops dead. The Footprint in the Sky by John Dickson Carr- in which Dorothy Dolly Brant is thought to have committed assault on her neighbour in the night during a bout of sleepwalking. Some of them seemed like they should have been longer but instead have been reduced, too densely packed for a good short story.