A Christmas Party (Inspector Hemingway, #2)

by Georgette Heyer

Previously titled Envious Casca

‘Tis the season to find whodunit …

It is no ordinary Christmas at Lexham Manor.

Six holiday guests find themselves the suspects in a murder inquiry when the old Scrooge who owns the substantial estate is found stabbed in the back.

Whilst the delicate matter of inheritance could be the key to this crime, the real conundrum is how any of the suspects could have entered the locked room where the victim was found, to commit this foul deed.

For Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard, the investigation is also complicated by the fact that every guest at Lexham Manor is hiding something – casting suspicion far and wide…

• ISBN10: 1784754684
• ISBN13: 9781784754686
• Publish Date: 5 November 2015 (first published 1941)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Cornerstone
• Imprint: Arrow Books Ltd
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

That half star is because my expectations, based on previous Heyer mysteries, were completely blown away.   Envious Casca is both a text-book Country House Mystery and Locked Room Mystery, and it's far and away the best Heyer mystery I've read so far.  It's a slow burn, certainly; almost half the book goes by before anyone dies, but Heyer placates her audience - at least this one - with the acerbic humour and no-holds-barred verbal warfare that takes place amongst the family members, written brilliantly by Heyer.  These people are so vile to each other the only wonder is that the blades didn't come out sooner; at one point, tea was served and I thought to myself "I wouldn't drink that if I were you. Any of you."   It feels like it would be too easy to give away important plot points here, so I'll just say the murderer wasn't who I thought it would be (although I was close), some of the characters were a little too vile to be believed, and I'd have preferred at least one more paragraph, preferably a page, at the end.  There's a small romance, because it's Heyer, but I'm not sure it isn't launched and HEA'd all on the same page, so it's really not more than a small also-ran.  That it would end the way it did felt inevitable, but there was never any actual romancing.   The more I type, the closer I get to spoilers, so just read it if you like anything you've ever read by Heyer (she's hit and miss in both romance and mystery) and you're in the mood for a slow read with great, biting dialogue.  I don't think you'll be disappointed.