Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan

Murder for Christmas (Mordecai Tremaine Mystery)

by Francis Duncan

Mulled wine, mince pies...and murder.

Mordecai Tremaine, former tobacconist and perennial lover of romance novels, has been invited to spend Christmas in the sleepy village of Sherbroome at the country retreat of one Benedict Grame.

Arriving on Christmas Eve, he finds that the revelries are in full flow - but so too are tensions amongst the assortment of guests.

Midnight strikes and the party-goers discover that it's not just presents nestling under the tree...there's a dead body too. A dead body that bears a striking resemblance to Father Christmas.

With the snow falling and the suspicions flying, it's up to Mordecai to sniff out the culprit - and prevent someone else from getting murder for Christmas.

'The book nods towards Agatha Christie but retains a crackling atmosphere of dread and horror that will chill the heart however warm your fireside' Metro

Reviewed by brokentune on

2 of 5 stars

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NO one could have foretold how it was going to end.
Not even the murderer.

Well, that's not quite true... I had the murderer picked out @41% and even had a hunch about the motive ... because the setup of this story reminded me of a Graham Greene story.

The downside of all this was that the following 59% of the book were pure tedium.

It is a shame because the Preview of the book, where we get a snap shot of the discovery of the victim before the story has even been set up, made for fun reading. Unfortunately, the actual story was riddled with excruciatingly over-written internal monologue, and no reference to Dickensian characters or attempts at a Poirot-like MC could make up for it.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 14 December, 2017: Finished reading
  • 14 December, 2017: Reviewed