Thank you! I was looking at this one only yesterday, wondering if I should pick it up. I added it to my wishlist, but didn't get it. Now it can give up its wishlist space for something more original.
Don't get me wrong, it's not copycatting "Murder at the Vicarage" (particularly not in either plot or characters), and the general style -- as well as the underlying theme and the characters -- are decidedly more Ruth Rendell or P.D. James (or Colin Dexter, FWIW -- he was McGown's teacher at one point). The allusions to Christie's "Murder at the Vicarage" are slight, and limited to one scene / half a minor character and two comments (one of which only occurs at the very end, after the big reveal has already happened). Unfortunately, those clues, taken together with one particular feature of the book's construcion, was all it took me to make up my mind early on.
And btw, while I seem to be warning people away from books: In case you should also have come across L.B. Hathaway's "A Christmas Case": Seriously don't bother with that one. I took one look at it this morning and decided within less than a page to DNF. Zero atmosphere and wordy beyond belief.
I don't have the Hathaway on my list (and promptly added a note to Ammy not to bother), but I do have Kitchin's Crime at Christmas, which you've read, too, I think. How was that one?
If you're still looking for Christmas books with a "Golden Age" twinge, take a look at Mavis Doriel Hay's "Santa Klaus Murder", which I liked decidedly better than I had expected (and also better than Hay's other 2 recently republished mysteries).
I'll probably not fit in any more Christmas books this year, especially since my trip to the library this afternoon. The next one I'll dig into will be a Farjeon, while waiting for my copy of Gaudy Night to arrive.
I picked up Seven Dead and The Z Murders...and Martin Edwards BL "Blood on the Tracks" and a Francis Durrbridge (The Curzeon Case), because I ended up browsing the crime section at the central library rather than my usual branch. Unfortunately, I forgot to pick up Gaudy Night while I was there.
Which one is the one that has the same Inspector as 13 Guests?
I'll heed your advice and start with Seven Dead, but I'm also really looking forward to the other one. I rather like how there is something quite untraditional about the Farjeon books I have read so far.
Hehehe, that's what I love about BookLikes: I'm returning late to the party and in the interim there's been a whole new twist to the conversation with yet more insight into another couple of books ... which also happen to be on my TBR already!
If you're still looking for Christmas books with a "Golden Age" twinge, take a look at Mavis Doriel Hay's "Santa Klaus Murder", which I liked decidedly better than I had expected (and also better than Hay's other 2 recently republished mysteries).
As for the Hay book, I've read that one and wasn't a fan. (http://brokentune.booklikes.com/post/1509310/the-santa-klaus-murder)
I'll probably not fit in any more Christmas books this year, especially since my trip to the library this afternoon. The next one I'll dig into will be a Farjeon, while waiting for my copy of Gaudy Night to arrive.
Which Farjeon?
I'll heed your advice and start with Seven Dead, but I'm also really looking forward to the other one. I rather like how there is something quite untraditional about the Farjeon books I have read so far.