The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories
by P D James,
foreword by Val McDermid (2016).
Faber & Faber 2017 (2016)
[W]hen it happened to the newly promoted Sergeant Adam Dalgliesh his first thought was that he had somehow become involved in one of those Christmas short stories written to provide a seasonal frisson for the readers of an upmarket weekly magazine.
‘The Twelve Clues of Christmas’
This collection of four short stories, some almost novelettes, can be read any time of year even if three of the pieces are set around a Christmas gone wrong. Spanning three decades of the author’s creativity, they were first published in newspapers (the Daily Mail and the Sunday Times), in a collection (Detection Club Anthology) or independently (by a certain Clive Irving, who I assume is the journalist and author of that name).
Though ‘The Mistletoe Murder’ had already been in the author’s 2001 Murder in Triplicate collection, having the quartet of tales brought together in one volume — and thus no longer ephemeral — is as much a treat as it’s to have a masterclass in the variety of ways classic crime fiction can be proffered up. While each is very individual the tales as a whole exhibit some commonalities, such as either being based in a country house, or having cases investigated by Adam Dalgliesh, or describing victims being murdered in novel ways.
We have, as introductions to the quartet, two additional treats, a Foreword by fellow crime writer Val McDermid and, from 2001, a Preface by James herself. While not essential to an enjoyment of the main courses they do serve as welcome apéritifs (or, if one prefers, later digestifs); and the collection as a whole gains extra piquancy from being a posthumous publication, the author having died in 2014.
Continue reading “A seasonal frisson”
Calmgrove 