Who Likes to Cuddle Up with a Good Cozy Mystery at Christmas?
Ah, there’s nothing like curling up in the run-up to Christmas with a nice puzzle. Do you have a favorite Christmastime cozy mystery you like to read or reread? I know I do!
Here are some of my go-tos.
#1. Rest You Merry
Peter Shandy is a mild-mannered, middle-aged bachelor, a professor at the local college. Every Christmas local ladies bug him to decorate his charming village home for Christmas, and every year he declines.
Until he snaps. He decides to decorate with a vengeance, with lights, sound, the whole shebang, and then hightails it out of town to celebrate a quiet Christmas elsewhere.
Unfortunately, when he arrives home after his trip, he stumbles over the body of the bossiest, most tormenting of the local ladies, dead, in his living room. And apparently she was brought there by. . . Santa???
I love MacLeod’s zany, witty tales, and this is the first of a fun series with an amazingly wacky cast of characters.
Rest You Merry by Charlotte MacLeod
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#2. Twelve Clues of Christmas
This falls in the middle of Rhys Bowen’s delightful Royal Spyness series (Her Royal Spyness is the first).
Georgianna Rannoch (Georgie to her friends) is 34th in line to the British throne. She’s expected to live like a princess, but how can you do that with no money when you’re not allowed by the royal family to take a job, and you’re single at an age when society expects you to be married and living on your husband’s largesse?
Well, Georgie’s doing her best, but when she sees an ad for a well-bred young lady to assist the hostess with a traditional English Christmas house party, she jumps at the chance.
Unfortunately, traditional English house parties don’t usually involve murder and mayhem.
Twelve Clues of Christmas by Rhy Bowen
#3. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
The original US title was Murder for Christmas, which I like much better. Agatha Christie wrote it in response to a criticism that her stories were “too refined,” so she intentionally wrote this to have blood in it. A lot of blood.
A dysfunctional family comes together for Christmas, under the aegis of the tyrannical old patriarch, Simeon Lee. Of course the annoying old autocrat is murdered, and Poirot, who happens to be visiting in the village, helps solve the case.
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie
#4. Starring Miss Seeton
The Miss Seeton series is a mixed bag. I love the original five books, written by Heron Carvic. Subsequent books in the series were written by two other authors under the names Hamilton Crane and Hampton Charles, and they lack the deft wit of the original.
Even so, if you’re in the mood to cuddle up with a nice Christmas Cozy, check this one out.
Miss Seeton, retired art teacher and bringer of mayhem wherever she goes, is helping out backstage in the annual village Christmas pantomime. As always, she’s the catalyst for the unexpected.
Starring Miss Seeton by Hamilton Crane
Of course, there are hundreds —maybe even thousands — of Christmas-themed cozies out there. I’d love to know your favorites in the comments below.
What I’m Reading
I’m plowing through a series featuring Beth Haldane, written by Alice Castle.
Beth is a single mum in a small, village-like area of Southeast London known as Dulwich. In the first book, Beth, who’s been cobbling together a subsistence-level income doing freelance writing and editing since her husband died unexpectedly when their son, Jake, was small, gets a new job.
Unfortunately, nobody told her that stumbling over the very dead body of her boss would be the highlight of her first morning in the new position.
Having been a freelancer, a single mom, and sharing Beth’s short gene — both of us are five-feet-nothing — I feel as if she and I have a lot in common.
The first book in the series is aptly titled The Murder Mystery.
Tools Run Amok
Last time I told you about the AI art app at MidJourney.com. I haven’t had as much time to play with it as I would like, but I did create the Christmas tree picture at the top of this newsletter with it. What do you think?
I’m learning you have to be really, really specific with it. For example, my first attempt was for a “decorated Christmas tree with a pile of red and green books underneath.” Here’s one of the early renditions.
Not exactly what I had in mind. . . After attempting several variations, I finally gave up on the books and just went with the decorated Christmas tree.
This will be our last newsletter before the holidays. Wishing you all the best of the festive season, whatever and however you celebrate. So. . .
Merry Chistmas. . . Happy Hannukah. . . Happy Kwanzaa. . . Happy Solstice. . . Joyeux Noel. . . you get the idea.