Book Review - Francis Duncan's Murder for Christmas
Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan
Published by: Sourcebooks Landmark
Publication Date: 1950
Format: Paperback, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy
Businessman Benedict Grame bought Sherbroome House from the impoverished Melvin family as a country retreat despite muttered oaths from the local villagers that one day the Melvins would return. Every Christmas he holds a lavish traditional holiday celebration, a true old-fashioned Christmas, where it's an honor to be chosen to attend. These festivities aren't for the locals or the children of the village who would get the most out of it, but the elite. The select few. Those invited must embrace the holiday spirit, with Grame himself even donning the costume of Father Christmas to decorate the tree with everyone's presents on Christmas Eve. Grame has a childlike glee in his playacting with his guests indulging him. The snowstorm brewing will add the final touch to Grame's Christmas trimmings. Mordecai Tremaine is honored to be one of two new additions to the year's guest list. Tremaine would describe himself as an ex-tobacconist who is now rather a social parasite who met Grame through mutual friends. With the inclement but festive weather forcing all the guests to be housebound Tremaine takes a turn about Sherbroome House to met his fellow inmates. On each introduction there arises in him his love of mystery and romance. Who is this person? What is their heart's desire. For the ward of Grame's oldest friend, Jeremy Rainer, Denys Arden, it is clear her heart's desire is Roger Wynton. As a lover of romance novels, this thrills Termaine's heart. But he sees a problem, Rainer is an odd overprotective man who cancelled his plans to go to the States for the holiday season to stay at Sherbroome House and definitely has plans for Denys that don't involve Roger. Then there's the family, "Uncle" Gerald Beechley who loves an inappropriate joke, and Grame's sister Charlotte who behaves like a sour maid with a dark secret whom Tremaine had seen the day previously in Calnford having tea, which she denies. The party is rounded off with Rosalind Marsh who runs a curio shop and paints, Austin Delamere who is an exhausted statesman, neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Napier, the stunning Lucia Tristam, who is possibly a widow with her eyes set on either Benedict or Jeremy, and Professor Ernest Lorring, the other "new" guest and a scientist. Of course Grame's secretary, Nicholas Blaise, is also present. As Tremaine settles in for a long winter's nap he spies Father Christmas on the terrace below him, at first wondering if it is a dream, a fantasy, but of course it is his host setting out to decorate the Christmas tree. The landscape is a three dimensional Christmas card or a shop window, an illusion. An illusion that brought menace when a cloud passed overhead. Malignity and terror were abroad with an expectant atmosphere. When a scream pierces the night Tremaine realizes this is what he'd been expecting. But the body under the tree not being Grame is unexpected. Was the wrong man killed? And will the killer strike again?
Murder for Christmas is a delicious festive work from the Golden Age of Detection. I read a lot of murder mysteries set during the holiday season and rarely has one stood out for such a strong sense of place and an amazing kicker of a conclusion, which any of those other reviewers who marked this book as DNF were robbed of. Seriously, I don't get people who give up early on books, I understand our time on this planet is limited but a book can surprise you in the very last few pages and totally change your view of what came before. And while I was enjoying my entire time at Sherbroome House, damn. But I'm getting ahead of myself because first I wanted to talk about it's sense of place. I don't know if you're like me but I kind of have stock images of country houses in my head. Unless great detail is gone into then they're all basically set in the same place in my mind. Perhaps this is because I watch so many British murder mysteries and they use the same locations over and over again or perhaps it's because back when I used to play MMORPGs every pub was literally the same, which has spilled over into my reading. Literally every pub is the same from Westeros to Temerant. Or, in an egregious example, how in City of Heroes all quests were in office buildings and each and every office building was the same and it ended up being so repetitive that I quickly stopped playing that game despite the fact that I could fly. But Sherbroome House? Damn. I think I could draw this house with the description that Francis Duncan wrote and despite the whole murder aspect, I want to go to there. I want to be in that library with those shelves stacked with books and that golden glow of the tree with the presents hanging from it. I mean, I could do without the corpse, but I can work around that. There's a uniqueness to this place. It felt so real, not just a simulacrum or composite of other houses. This place is as real as the house I'm sitting in right now and I have to applaud the author for that. So few actually succeed at this task. But really, it's the ending that deserves the standing ovation. So, while this book was originally published in 1950 and reprinted in 2017 I'm still giving a spoiler warning because, well, it's the nice thing to do. And yes, sometimes I am not nice and spoil books I hate on purpose without warning, but this isn't one of them. So the big reveal is that these lavish old-fashioned Christmas house parties are mandatory on the part of the participates because Grame is blackmailing them all. This is enforced glee. And while I know many people have a love/hate relationship with the holidays, I personally am the opposite of a scrooge. I'm all about the tree and the trimmings and the baking and the books. So to me, taking something that is supposed to be full of joy and making people do a pantomime of partying is like so deliciously evil I just can't. Francis Duncan is a genius for this perversion of tradition. Well done sir. Well done.
Post a Comment