'The horror on the train, great though it may turn out to be, will not compare with the horror that exists here, in this house.' On Christmas Eve, heavy snowfall brings a train to a halt near the village of Hemmersby. Several passengers take shelter in a deserted country house, where the fire has been lit and the table laid for tea - but no one is at home. Trapped together for Christmas, the passengers are seeking to unravel the secrets of the empty house when a murderer strikes in their midst.
Finally, I felt that it was hard to invest in the idea of solving the murders that take place when we really have so little sense of who these victims are for much of the book. This didn’t bother me for the first half of the story because there Farjeon devotes his energies to establishing the strange, Marie Celeste-like qualities of the house but once we are trying to understand murder I think the novel needed to become more focused.
Read my full review at Mysteries Ahoy!