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THE GIFT THAT GIVES ON GIVING. . . With Farberville's college on holiday break, Claire Malloy's bookstore is quiet . . . deadly quiet. Breaking the silence is a little old lady looking for volumes on pagan rituals, applied magick, and Celtic mysticism. Claire is intrigued and--miffed that her lover, Farberville police Lieutenant Peter Rosen, says she's in a rut--happily accepts an invitation to welcome the winter solstice at dawn. HOMICIDE FOR THE HOLIDAYS Showing up at the Sacred Grove, Claire expects wild chanting or even nude dancing. Instead she ends up sitting on a stump watching the Arch Druid clean her bifocals. Then winter arrives and so does a dead man. Someone has shot the wealthy benefactor of Farberville's neo-pagans. Now Claire is mixing some snooping with her Christmas shopping. But instead of wrapping up the case, she finds out 'tis the season for ho- ho- homicide . . . and she may be the next victim.… (more)
User reviews
Claire's teenage daughter Caron and her friend Inez have found what look like the ideal, well paying, holiday jobs at Santa's Workshop. They will be reindeer assisting in taking Christmas photos of children sitting on Santa's lap. What could be simpler?
Claire's friend Peter, the local police chief, has had to leave town for a few days to deal with a family emergency, and Claire is feeling rather disappointed. But the final few days to Christmas prove to be far from uneventful. Claire is invited by Malthea to be an observer at a winter solstice celebration. Just before dawn, as the ceremony is about to start, an older male member of the Druidic community is found dead, murdered. The subsequent hunt for the murderer reveals that the Druidic community is full of problems.
Just to complicate things Caron's job as Santa's helper turns out to be part of a scam for the unsuspecting.
In the police chief's prolonged absence Claire works with the local officers in finding out the truth about who committed the murder and why.
A HOLLY, JOLLY MURDER is light frothy read, a variant on a cozy, but not one that will send me in desperate search for other titles by Joan Hess. Perhaps you have read a better one??
These days it probably qualifies as a short book at 270-odd pages but, for me, it still managed to drag a bit because there wasn’t a lot happening. I’m pretty sure I could edit out 50 pages without impacting the story at all just by removing the repetitive passages along the lines of “I got my keys and drove to the store and did some dusting and some thinking and then I drove over to see Malthea…”
I didn’t find Claire Malloy to be a particularly interesting protagonist. She’s quite passive, a whingerand I really never bought into the premise that a community wary of strangers would almost universally trust Claire, whom none of them had before, with all of their secrets. I understand it had to be done to advance the plot; I just never believed it in the context of the story. In the cosy books that I like there is generally a less tenuous link between the amateur sleuth and the investigation than was the case here. Also, apart from Claire’s teenage daughter Caron, the other characters were very under-developed and I couldn’t summon up much interest in which of them might have committed the murder.
Officially my rating is 2.5
When an old woman, dressed in a long, print dress, wool socks, sandals, her
When Claire arrives at the early morning event, she finds a murder instead of a bonfire. She also finds that the group has quite a bit of friction between the members and there are some dangerous secrets being kept.
While Claire is trying to not get involved, but is being pulled in by various members, her daughter is dealing with being a Santa’s helper and the trials and tribulations of parents, kids and having pictures taken with Santa.
It is a cozy mystery with a good dose of humour. A fun and quick read.