Christmas books – vintage crime

Murder in the Snow cover

Can you believe that there are some houses in my neighbourhood that are already decorated for Christmas? Crazy! Nowadays it takes me a while to get into the Christmas spirit, some years I never manage it at all but I find that reading some Christmas themed books usually helps. This year I’ve only got two such books to read, I might have to resort to the library for some more.

Anyway for me murder mysteries and Christmas go together like fish and chips so I’m giving Gladys Mitchell another go. I’ve read quite a few of her books in the past but I’m not really enamoured of her detective – Mrs Bradley. The mystery to me is why she made her detective so unlikeable. I’ll be reading her Murder in the Snow which was first published in 1950 and has an attractive Christmasy cover.

The other Christmas themed book I have is called Silent Nights, a collection of Christmas mysteries which is edited by Martin Edwards. The contributors are:

Arthur Conan Doyle
Ralph Plummer
Raymund Allen
G.K. Chesterton
Edgar Wallace
H.C. Bailey
J.Jefferson Farjeon
Dorothy L. Sayers
Margery Allingham
Ethel Lina White
Marjorie Bowen
Joseph Shearing
Nicholas Blake
Edmund Crispin
Leo Bruce

I have read The Necklace of Pearls, the Dorothy Sayers short story, before and wasn’t all that impressed with it. I hope the others are better.

4 thoughts on “Christmas books – vintage crime

  1. Mrs Bradley isn’t my favorite detective either, but I haven’t read many of the books in that series. I did not know that there was a Christmas book in the series, I am eager to see what you think of it.

    I have read Silent Nights. As with most anthologies, some stories are good, some are not as appealing, and each reader has favorites.

    • tracybham,
      I’ll be starting that Mrs Bradley book soon. I suppose it’s inevitable that we all have favourites in anthologies, there are so many writers involved in this one that there are bound to be some goodies for everyone.

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