Murder by Candlelight - Ed. Cecily Gayford ***
By Brian Clegg
Nothing seems to suit Christmas reading better than either ghost stories or Christmas-set novels. For some this means a fluffy romance in the snow, but for those of us with darker preferences, it’s hard to beat a good Christmas murder.
An annual event for me over the last few years has been getting the excellent series of classic murderous Christmas short stories pulled together by Cecily Gayford, starting with the 2016 Murder under the Christmas Tree. This featured seasonal output from the likes of Margery Allingham, Arthur Conan Doyle, Ellis Peters and Dorothy L. Sayers, laced with a few more modern authors such as Ian Rankin and Val McDermid, in some shiny Christmassy twisty tales. I actually thought while purchasing this year’s addition ‘Surely she is going to run out of classic stories soon’ – and sadly, to a degree, Gayford has.
The first half of Murder by Candlelight is up to the usual standard with some good seasonal tales from the likes of Catherine Aird, Carter Dickson and Dorothy L. Sayers. But the remainder, while most quite good only just touch on a winter connection (if at all), let alone having the Christmas setting. To make matters worse, the longest story in the book is the dire The Mystery of the Sleeping-Car Express by Freeman Willis Crofts. This plodding train-based locked room mystery is dull in the extreme. It might have been rescued a touch by a clever twist at the end – but the solution is pedestrian.
As a whole it’s not a disastrous book, but unlike all its predecessors it’s going on the ‘dispose’ pile rather than my shelves for re-reads. Don’t be put off from the series, though, if you like this kind of thing – there are plenty of delights in all the earlier volumes.
You can buy Murder by Candlelight from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Bookshop.org but you’d be better off with the likes of Murder under the Christmas Tree, also from Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com and Bookshop.org
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Now Appearing is the blog of science writer Brian Clegg (www.brianclegg.net), author of Inflight Science, Before the Big Bang and The God Effect.
Source: http://brianclegg.blogspot.com/2024/12/murder-by-candlelight-ed-cecily-gayford.html
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