Murder For Christmas by Frances Duncan

This "classic mystery for the festive season" features amateur sleuth Mordecai Tremaine, retired tobacconist and lover of romance stories, invited to a manor home for the holidays. "No one could have foretold how it was going to end, not even the murderer."

Mordecai Tremaine met wealthy Benedict Graeme at a London party and is invited to spend the holidays at Sherbroome House. Benedict's young ward, Denys, will be there with her beau, Roger, along with 'Uncles' Jeremy and Gerald—friends old enough to be considered family.

It is to be a Christmas with all the trimmings. Benedict insists on a jolly affair with carolers, mistletoe, requisite snow, his youthful folly to dress up as Santa Claus, a grand tree festooned with presents, and those invited change their plans to give him the Christmas he wants. The full house includes artist Rosalind Marsh, politician Austin Delamere, the Napiers from next door, scientist Professor Lorring, Benedict's spinster sister Charlotte, and colorful flame-haired Lucia Tristam of indeterminate age (whom both Benedict and Jeremy covet).

Benedict's secretary Mr. Blaise hopes Tremaine's inquisitive eye will solve his dreaded premonition that something bad is about to happen—proven right when a body dressed in a Santa suit is found shot dead under the tree on Christmas Eve. The murderer was obviously after Benedict—but the body is not his!

Superintendent Cannock works with Tremaine, whose reputation as an amateur criminologist assisting a Scotland Yard case last year precedes him. All the presents have disappeared, three people were dressed as Santa that night, and each guest had a reason to be there - and would rather have been anywhere else!

Francis Duncan is the author of over twenty crime novels between 1937 and 1959.

Mordecai Tremaine is a 'Marple' character, in his sixties and judiciously observant, fitting in while remaining reserved. I was happy to hear he stars in six more mysteries. The characters are well drawn, a romance thrown in, a missing diamond necklace, and a bang-up reveal. Not only of the killer, but a diabolical and mean-spirited twist to the entire Christmas holiday!

Available in all formats including eBook and audio.

1947 / Tradeback / 347 pages