Book: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen (A Year-Round Christmas Mystery book #1) by Vicki Delany
Edition: Paperback
Description:
In Rudolph, New York, it's Christmastime all year long. But this December, while the snow-lined streets seem merry and bright, a murder is about to ruin everyone's holiday cheer...
As the owner of Mrs. Claus's Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That's why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoo-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry's flat is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there's a Scrooge in Christmas Town.
Merry isn't ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph's Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter's body on a late-night dog walk and police suspect he was poisoned -- by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky -- Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who's really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa's naughty list...
Rating: 4 stars
Review:
In Rest Ye Murdered Gentleman, the small town of Rudolph, New York celebrates Christmas all year long but during the middle of December it looks like someone was trying to ruin not only the holiday season festivities but also the town's stellar reputation with tourists.
Merry Wilkinson who owns the store Mrs. Claus's Treasures didn't think there was anything suspicious when the tractor that was pulling her float for the semi-annual Santa Claus parade didn't start. She figured it was a random malfunction that cost her the win for best float which went to her best friend Vicky Casey who owns the bakery Victoria's Bake Shoppe. However, she later found out that the tractor had been tampered with.
Once the parade was over, Merry, the other residents and the tourists were ready to enjoy the night's event the Parade Reception. In town observing the festivities was writer Nigel Pearce who was writing the article "America's Christmas Town" for World Journey magazine. His haughty attitude didn't go unnoticed by Merry nor his overt interest in her employee Jackie but if he was there to write and photograph the town for an article which is sure to bring good publicity why should she care about his snobbish demeanor.
At the Parade Reception, Vicky, who catered the event, had baked some special cookies with one in particular for Nigel Pearce. With the event which was considered a hit with the tourists, was done and over with Merry went home to feed and walk her St. Bernard puppy Mattie. However, during their walk through the park, she spotted a body laying in the snow, it was Mr. Pearce.
The police investigation had them zeroing in on Vicky because the cookie Nigel ate had been poisoned. Merry knew that Vicky wasn't responsible for the death of Nigel but the fact that Vicky was considered a person of interest along with her bakery being shut down only added to the increased negative publicity the town was suddenly experiencing.
Eventually, the police realized that someone tampered with that one cookie and allowed Vicky to reopen her bakery. However, that didn't stop the negative attention that was focused on the town especially since the murderer was still out there.
With the police having no real leads to follow, the only thing the town could do was try to counteract the growing negative publicity by showing that Rudolph was still the premier Christmas town in America. However, a neighboring town, Muddle Harbor was certainly trying to take advantage of Rudolph's situation by trying to persuade tourists to visit their town.
The murder of Nigel Pearce seemed to set off a string of bad incidents occurring throughout Rudolph. Merry had not set out to investigate but she found herself questioning who stands to benefit from so many terrible things that have been happening.
I enjoyed reading this, it was fast-paced and had an interesting story and as the first book in the series it did a good job introducing the characters and the Christmas themed town. However, as with so many cozy mysteries it does take a while for the mystery solving to start. And once it did, I wish Merry had taken a more active role in trying to solve the mystery. I feel like she sort of lucked up on finding the person behind the incidents. However, I did enjoy the author including a bit of misdirection in the story.
I often wonder if there is some sort of rule for cozy mysteries that there has to be a love triangle because Merry had two guys interested in her one was her old high school boyfriend Alan Anderson who was a toymaker while the other was Russ Durham the Editor-in-Chief of the Rudolph Gazatte newspaper. It was not a full on love triangle but it's certainly heading in that direction.
Even though I wish there had been more attention placed on Merry solving the mystery, this was a good read and I'm interested in reading the second book in the series.
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