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jbarr5's review
3.0
The Christmas Garland by Anne Perry
India 1837-This story starts out with Lt. Narraway and he's been given an assignment-to be the lawyer for the soldier who's being charged with murder.
He goes to visit him in jail and John Tallis claims he is not guilty of the crime and tells the lt. what happened the night in question.
He then cycles it through his mind and tries to figure out different angles and how things could've been.
He also questions the others and their story is pretty much the same, different words. At the end he goes back to the house where the father lived and meets the little girl and the blue chain she has made with her mother.
He plays with her and has a meal and then must leave-he may have found the answer...
India 1837-This story starts out with Lt. Narraway and he's been given an assignment-to be the lawyer for the soldier who's being charged with murder.
He goes to visit him in jail and John Tallis claims he is not guilty of the crime and tells the lt. what happened the night in question.
He then cycles it through his mind and tries to figure out different angles and how things could've been.
He also questions the others and their story is pretty much the same, different words. At the end he goes back to the house where the father lived and meets the little girl and the blue chain she has made with her mother.
He plays with her and has a meal and then must leave-he may have found the answer...
kketelaar's review
2.0
This novella would have made a better short story. There were several times as I was reading that I thought "Haven't I already read this?" In fact I had, just earlier in the story. The link to Christmas was tenuous at best. I am giving it 2 stars because I did like the character of Narraway.
kbmertz's review
2.0
It was a little irritating to think that no one else at any time thought of the issue that solved the case. So it was in that sense unbelievable. Also, was British military justice so weak such that someone could be put to death with no evidence? I can't imagine it being that way.
judyward's review
3.0
Every year Anne Perry writes a short Christmas novel to mark the season. This year's offering is set in India in 1857 just months after the Siege of Cawnpore with all of its horrors on both sides. After a British soldier is killed and an Indian prisoner escapes, everyone at the British camp is under suspicion. A popular medical orderly, John Tallis, is arrested only because he is the only member of the British garrison whose movements couldn't be verified during the incident. It's up to Lt. Victor Narraway to discover the truth and he is helped by a Christmas garland made for him by a child preparing for the holidays. Not the strongest book of this Christmas series, but the information about British soldiers in India during and after the mutiny was fascinating.
eawsmom's review
4.0
A quickly read, entertaining Christmas novella, typical of Perry's Christmas books. In this installment, 20-year-old Lieutenant Victor Narraway is serving in India just after the uprising at Cawnpore. He is given two days to construct a defense for a soldier accused of betraying his fellow soldiers and killing a well-liked Indian soldier; there is no concrete evidence to prove the soldier guilty but he is the only person whose activities cannot be verified by another. Against all odds and thanks to a game of hide-and-seek with a young child he has befriended, Narraway succeeds.
carolsnotebook's review
3.0
The conclusion to the who dunnit is clever, a puzzle solution more or less, and I did like Narraway, his willingness to try his hardest to provide the best defense he can, but overall it’s not a book I would have read if it didn’t have “Christmas” in the title. But as a Christmas story, it is heart-warming. The sense of hope, even in the devastated town, is never lost, people can still depend on each other, there is always a light in the darkness.