Book Review - Alexandra Benedict's Murder on the Christmas Express
Murder on the Christmas Express by Alexandra Benedict
Published by: Poisoned Pen Press
Publication Date: October 3rd, 2023
Format: Paperback, 272 Pages
Rating: ★★
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Roz Parker has something to celebrate. She's taken early retirement from the Met and is traveling home to Scotland to welcome her first grandchild. Though her daughter has gone into labor six weeks early. Which means she's broken her promise to her daughter. Again. But really, she had to tie up that last case. She's not one to leave a job unfinished. One thing Roz has always dreamed of doing is taking the sleeper train to Fort William. A dream that everyone at her station knew about, so they pitched in to buy her a first class ticket as part of her leaving present. Despite the seasonal, if problematic, weather, Roz's train hasn't been cancelled and she'll be home for Christmas and hopefully before the birth of her grandchild. To stave off panic she starts to manipulate her Mirror Cube, like the Rubik's Cube she mastered, but harder. Her solitude is broken into by a young couple arguing; Grant and Meg. Grant is what most would consider handsome and Meg is an influencer who won a singing contest with the song "In No Time." And she's not gone unnoticed by the fellow passengers. But Roz sees what her fellow passengers in the first class lounge don't, the bruise on Meg's upper arm. There's the students trying to get on the quiz show Geek Street. The family with the baby, their teenagers having been the ones who noticed Meg. Then there's Ember, a romantic, actually bringing a copy of Murder on the Orient Express with her. And Tony and his mother Mary who don't have tickets to the first class lounge, but seeing as it's Christmas, Roz gives Mary her seat, much to Grant's objections. Given the ructions in the lounge it's with a sense of relief that the passengers board the train. One might even say a festive air returns. But this isn't going to be a smooth ride. It's not just the weather threatening them, but the dynamics between the guests is combustible and there's a killer amongst them. And Roz's panic is rising, her own memories linked to her daughter's birth are surfacing, trauma sticking to trauma. When Roz makes it to the club car things really start to kick off, and that's before the train derails. And Meg is found dead. But hers won't be the only corpse on this train. Roz will be lucky to survive, let alone meet her grandchild.
Holy hell, this book should have been called Trauma Train. Having read Alexandra Benedict's previous holiday themed mystery, The Christmas Murder Game, I know that, despite appearances, these aren't cozy mysteries. And while you could say that Midsomer Murders is a cozy series despite a high death count, that's done with a light touch. There is no light touch here. It's blunt force trauma. Which leads me to mention that if you ever want a good laugh, read some of the reviews of this book from people who judged it by it's cover, they got a way different ride than they expected. I was luckily prepared. Though in all seriousness, did they really consider Trauma Train as a possible title? It would have been perfect! The holidays are hard on many people. Just the sight of a Christmas tree or a carol heard on the radio can send them into a deep depression that won't lift until the last of the snow has melted. I know many people like this. Add to that family stress and strain. Complicated relationships between family that's forced together and you can see why many people do as I do and spend the holidays reading about family gatherings where there's quite a cull. In my mind, one of the relationships that has the most strain put on it is between mothers and daughters. If you have issues with your daughter or your mother or sadly both, this book needs a big old trigger warning for you. In fact Trigger Warning Train, another good title. Because despite fraught family relationships, Benedict then piles on the PTSD, the sexual assaults, the psychological abuse, the domestic abuse, the pregnancy fears. The horror just keeps being piled on. Yes, you can say, at least the main abuser gets what they deserve so there's some sort of collective sigh of relief, but really, there isn't. Which means that this book could, quite conceivably, ruin your love of holiday murder mysteries. My solution was to read something else as fast as I could as a palate cleanser and seek psychological counseling. In fact, everyone in this book needs psychological counseling. They need psychiatrists, psychologists, and maybe a few exorcists. Also, I think primal scream therapy would do nicely. It's better than a Rubik's Cube and Scottish Tablet. But to each their own.
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