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kingarooski's review against another edition
3.0
A good collection of crime stories and whodunnits set around the Christmas time. There is plenty in there to choose from but Give Me a Ring, The Black Bag Left on a Doorstep and Death on Air are favourites.
mwgerard's review against another edition
5.0
Whoever says crime and Christmas don’t go together is just wrong. Long, dark nights. Stressful travel and strained families. Overworked retailers and overwrought children. Of course someone is going to snap, sooner or later. The more adventurous criminal might even use the busy season to distract from their dastardly activities. Editor Martin Edwards has put together a delightful selection of Yuletide crime stories, cheerful enough to put any reader into the holiday spirit.
“The Black Bag Left on the Doorstep,” introduced the character Loveday Brooke, a female detective, in 1893. Here she attempts to solve a jewelry theft, and the appearance of a mysterious bag, disguised as an upper class maid.
“We are none of us at our ease with each other now,” she said, as she poured out hot tea for Loveday, and piled up a blazing fire. “Every one fancies that every one else is suspecting him or her, and trying to rake up past words or deeds to bring in as evidence. The whole house seems under a cloud. And at this time of year, too; just when everything as a rule is at its merriest.” Here she gave a doleful glance to the big bunch of holly and mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. ~Loc. 269
A G.K. Chesterton story finds a sinister plot at the center of a skating pond, an impossible locked room mystery that requires a postman’s delivery, a man found dead near his wireless radio, and a decades old secret hidden beneath the perfect Christmas tree in the back garden…
“Give Me a Ring” is a crime story that has a veneer of the supernatural.
It was Christmas Eve and nearly five of the clock, but an afternoon less like the traditional ideas of the season would be hard to imagine. True, a little snow had fallen in the early hours, but this was rapidly churned into slush by the relentless London traffics and about mid-day a haze of fog began to spread over the city. … The fog that had been no more than a gauze curtain, shot with gold lights from the stalls and shop-fronts and the street lamps, became a curtain of darkness. … The sight of a window where a light was still burning, at the end of the ribbon of darkness, gave her heart a sudden lift. Walking close against the wall, for the pavements here were narrow and she had no wish to trip over the kerb, she made where way to that welcome golden pane. ~ Loc. 2477
The story had so many twists and turns, I’m still not sure what to think of it.
I highly recommend this collection for your crime-y Christmas Eve reading.
My thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and Sourcebooks for the NetGalley access.
http://www.mwgerard.com/review-a-surprise-for-christmas/
“The Black Bag Left on the Doorstep,” introduced the character Loveday Brooke, a female detective, in 1893. Here she attempts to solve a jewelry theft, and the appearance of a mysterious bag, disguised as an upper class maid.
“We are none of us at our ease with each other now,” she said, as she poured out hot tea for Loveday, and piled up a blazing fire. “Every one fancies that every one else is suspecting him or her, and trying to rake up past words or deeds to bring in as evidence. The whole house seems under a cloud. And at this time of year, too; just when everything as a rule is at its merriest.” Here she gave a doleful glance to the big bunch of holly and mistletoe hanging from the ceiling. ~Loc. 269
A G.K. Chesterton story finds a sinister plot at the center of a skating pond, an impossible locked room mystery that requires a postman’s delivery, a man found dead near his wireless radio, and a decades old secret hidden beneath the perfect Christmas tree in the back garden…
“Give Me a Ring” is a crime story that has a veneer of the supernatural.
It was Christmas Eve and nearly five of the clock, but an afternoon less like the traditional ideas of the season would be hard to imagine. True, a little snow had fallen in the early hours, but this was rapidly churned into slush by the relentless London traffics and about mid-day a haze of fog began to spread over the city. … The fog that had been no more than a gauze curtain, shot with gold lights from the stalls and shop-fronts and the street lamps, became a curtain of darkness. … The sight of a window where a light was still burning, at the end of the ribbon of darkness, gave her heart a sudden lift. Walking close against the wall, for the pavements here were narrow and she had no wish to trip over the kerb, she made where way to that welcome golden pane. ~ Loc. 2477
The story had so many twists and turns, I’m still not sure what to think of it.
I highly recommend this collection for your crime-y Christmas Eve reading.
My thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and Sourcebooks for the NetGalley access.
http://www.mwgerard.com/review-a-surprise-for-christmas/
imcraigoc's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
4.0
shanaqui's review against another edition
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
A Surprise for Christmas is the 2020 collection of short crime/mystery stories based around Christmas-time from the British Library Crime Classics series, edited as always by Martin Edwards. It's a surprisingly star-studded volume, including stories from Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham, along with other standbys that appear more often in the anthologies of this series (like Carter Dickson, AKA John Dickson Carr).
It's a strong enough collection, much in the same vein as the others, without being surprising -- after all, that's somewhat part of the point in crime/mystery fiction of this general period. It usually isn't too surprising, though here and there an author like Julian Symons is included (as in this one), someone who tends more toward a psychological story.
Oddly enough, the Symons story included here is a repeat with a different title, previously included in The Christmas Card Crime, from 2018. Weird that no one realised that. The other stories are all new to the series so far as I can tell, though I haven't read Crimson Snow.
The Turn-Again Bell has quite the atmosphere, and would've been my favourite of the book, except that it seems a little trite in how it all wraps up. It doesn't feel quite at home with the other stories in this volume, to be honest, being less a crime/mystery, and more definitively a Christmas story. Maybe that's just me.
It's a strong enough collection, much in the same vein as the others, without being surprising -- after all, that's somewhat part of the point in crime/mystery fiction of this general period. It usually isn't too surprising, though here and there an author like Julian Symons is included (as in this one), someone who tends more toward a psychological story.
Oddly enough, the Symons story included here is a repeat with a different title, previously included in The Christmas Card Crime, from 2018. Weird that no one realised that. The other stories are all new to the series so far as I can tell, though I haven't read Crimson Snow.
The Turn-Again Bell has quite the atmosphere, and would've been my favourite of the book, except that it seems a little trite in how it all wraps up. It doesn't feel quite at home with the other stories in this volume, to be honest, being less a crime/mystery, and more definitively a Christmas story. Maybe that's just me.
emmi_strawberry's review against another edition
funny
lighthearted
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
zombiefied35's review against another edition
Nothing against the book. Just DNFed due to personal stuff
misskatz's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5