Anne Perry

When a peaceful weekend party at a posh English country manor house is ruined by a mysterious death, Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould takes on the role of sleuth to investigate the crime.

A Christmas Journey

This was included with audible until the end of the year, so I grabbed it for a Christmas season read.

This is a Christmas mystery novella. I have read one story by this author, but both were due to their relation to Christmas honestly. A group of friends are meeting for a long weekend during December. After dinner one night, a very rude comment is made to one of the women about how she’s only interested in the master of the house for his status. Without further thought, everyone goes to bed. However, the following morning, the offended woman is found dead, thrown from the bridge to the icy water below. The hitch here though, is that the bridge was designed so that no one could simply fall. Was she pushed or did she jump?

It is proposed that the guilty party should possibly be forced into a crusade or exile instead of involving the police. If they achieve the job they accepted, all would be forgiven. It would be as if they had survived their term of exile. Naturally, Lady Vispasia, who has absolutely nothing to lose, agrees to accompany them on this journey as a friend. The journey itself is rather harrowing, as they’re going further north during the month of December, but I found the whole exile thing to be pretty odd.

After their journey, the novella wraps up into probably one of the most confusing and infuriating endings ever. They have retrieved the mother of the deceased. The letter they brought her from her daughter detailed more of the situation than they realized, perhaps even pointing the finger at someone other than the accused. Then it just ends with—and I can’t stress this enough as the real ending—“Hell, it’s Christmas! The season of forgiving. Let’s party.”

C. J. Daley 

This was included with audible until the end of the year, so I grabbed it for a Christmas season read.

This is a Christmas mystery novella. I have read one story by this author, but both were due to their relation to Christmas honestly. A group of friends are meeting for a long weekend during December. After dinner one night, a very rude comment is made to one of the women about how she’s only interested in the master of the house for his status. Without further thought, everyone goes to bed. However, the following morning, the offended woman is found dead, thrown from the bridge to the icy water below. The hitch here though, is that the bridge was designed so that no one could simply fall. Was she pushed or did she jump?

It is proposed that the guilty party should possibly be forced into a crusade or exile instead of involving the police. If they achieve the job they accepted, all would be forgiven. It would be as if they had survived their term of exile. Naturally, Lady Vispasia, who has absolutely nothing to lose, agrees to accompany them on this journey as a friend. The journey itself is rather harrowing, as they’re going further north during the month of December, but I found the whole exile thing to be pretty odd.

After their journey, the novella wraps up into probably one of the most confusing and infuriating endings ever. They have retrieved the mother of the deceased. The letter they brought her from her daughter detailed more of the situation than they realized, perhaps even pointing the finger at someone other than the accused. Then it just ends with—and I can’t stress this enough as the real ending—“Hell, it’s Christmas! The season of forgiving. Let’s party.”

A Christmas Journey

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