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Christine Bennett #9
The New Year's Eve Murder
THE PARTY'S OVER
On December 30, Susan Stark was dropped off in front of her parents' house. She hasn't been heard from since. Not a good scenario, especially in New York.
Former nun (now crime investigator) Christine Bennett fears the worst. Armed with only a few phone numbers and a photo of Susan, she steps into the missing girl's life--and meets a Susan that neither her parents nor her boyfriend knew existed . . . with strange obsessions and a secret life that may have lured her to a deadly end.
On December 30, Susan Stark was dropped off in front of her parents' house. She hasn't been heard from since. Not a good scenario, especially in New York.
Former nun (now crime investigator) Christine Bennett fears the worst. Armed with only a few phone numbers and a photo of Susan, she steps into the missing girl's life--and meets a Susan that neither her parents nor her boyfriend knew existed . . . with strange obsessions and a secret life that may have lured her to a deadly end.
256 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published October 29, 1997
19 people are currently reading
167 people want to read
About the author
Lee Harris
103 books77 followersA pseudonym used by Syrell Leahy.
Lee Harris is the author of the mystery novels featuring ex-nun Christine Bennett, who first appeared in The Good Friday Murder, an Edgar Award nominee. She also writes the New York Mysteries, which debuted with Murder in Hell's Kitchen. In 2001, Lee Harris received the Romantic Times magazine Career Achievement Award for her distinguished contribution to crime writing.
Lee Harris is the author of the mystery novels featuring ex-nun Christine Bennett, who first appeared in The Good Friday Murder, an Edgar Award nominee. She also writes the New York Mysteries, which debuted with Murder in Hell's Kitchen. In 2001, Lee Harris received the Romantic Times magazine Career Achievement Award for her distinguished contribution to crime writing.
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
January 12, 2022
I read this many years ago but decided to read it fresh for 2022. I liked it. Old fashioned kind of mystery....with nun who isn't a nun anymore as the "agatha Christie". Did not guess the ending at all.
April 30, 2020
The New Year's Eve Murder (1997) by Lee Harris is the ninth book in the Christine Bennet series. I'm steadily making my way through the books that I haven't yet reviewed on the blog and/or used for challenges previously. New Year's Eve finds Chris, her husband Jack, and new baby invited to a party and overnight stay at the home of their friends, Arnold & Harriet Gold. While there, Arnold receives a distressed phone call from another friend--Ada Stark. Ada's daughter Susan is missing. Susan's boyfriend, Kevin, dropped her off in front of her parents' house the afternoon before New Year's Eve. She planned to spend the night and then go to a New Year's Eve party with him. But it appears that she never got into the house. No one has seen her since she got out of Kevin's car and he drove away.
Of course, since Susan is of age, the police don't go full-throttle looking for her. Adults can change their minds about what they want to do and where they want to be. But Chris talks with the boyfriend and the mother and she realizes that this isn't a case of an adult woman deciding to run away from her obligations. Something must have happened after Susan got out of the car, but what could have happened on a public street in broad daylight? Once she starts digging, she finds that things aren't quite what they seem. It appears that Susan did go off on her own and apparently paid a farmer a month's rent on an abandoned farmhouse. When Chris follows that lead, she finds what she dreaded she might....a dead body. But even that isn't what it seems.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
Of course, since Susan is of age, the police don't go full-throttle looking for her. Adults can change their minds about what they want to do and where they want to be. But Chris talks with the boyfriend and the mother and she realizes that this isn't a case of an adult woman deciding to run away from her obligations. Something must have happened after Susan got out of the car, but what could have happened on a public street in broad daylight? Once she starts digging, she finds that things aren't quite what they seem. It appears that Susan did go off on her own and apparently paid a farmer a month's rent on an abandoned farmhouse. When Chris follows that lead, she finds what she dreaded she might....a dead body. But even that isn't what it seems.
First posted on my blog My Reader's Block.
February 26, 2019
Christine Bennett, former nun, now a wife and new mother as well as amateur detective, becomes involved when a young woman goes missing on New Year's Eve.
I found the book uninspired because it consists of only 3 things that occur in a variety of alternations:
1. Chris asks questions, either in person or by phone. Everyone is remarkably communicative; nobody slams down the phone or stonewalls. When they do lie, Chris immediately senses it, so that immediately points her towards her next clue.
2. Chris' policeman husband conveniently provides all the information she can't obtain by questioning, like autopsy reports and crime scene results.
3. Chris nurses her baby and reflects on how lucky she is.
The dialogue is unnatural because it's nothing more than a vehicle to get information from the witnesses to Chris. So the book feels stilted, lifeless.
I found the book uninspired because it consists of only 3 things that occur in a variety of alternations:
1. Chris asks questions, either in person or by phone. Everyone is remarkably communicative; nobody slams down the phone or stonewalls. When they do lie, Chris immediately senses it, so that immediately points her towards her next clue.
2. Chris' policeman husband conveniently provides all the information she can't obtain by questioning, like autopsy reports and crime scene results.
3. Chris nurses her baby and reflects on how lucky she is.
The dialogue is unnatural because it's nothing more than a vehicle to get information from the witnesses to Chris. So the book feels stilted, lifeless.
January 1, 2021
Another in the series of Christin Bennett murder mysteries. Well, this one I thought I solved. But no, twist at the end. Susan Stark disappears on New Year's Eve Day and does not show up to the swanky party. Christine Bennett begins to put the pieces together, finds yet another dead body (how is she always in the right place at the wrong time or the wrong place at the right time). Is told not to investigate by her lawyer/employer/friend of the family but does anyway...and a better job than the multiple police departments involved in the case. A good break to read during a "vacation" week that ends with New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. A great way to start 2021. There were a couple of funny points...the adorable new device--a cell phone. Arrested for nursing--perfect for an ex-num married to an NYPD cop. Next up for me...the Birthday Murder.
January 13, 2021
Pretty good...first one I’ve read in this series...I’m a little skeptical an ex nun, now married and has a baby, can uncover info like she did in this book....but I did like it...I’m trying another ...
January 20, 2020
Another good book by Lee Harris. Chris always finds the bad buy but I can't figure it out!!! Good story telling!
July 24, 2010
Despite new baby showcase, Chris #9 usual good read!
This 9th entry in the Christine Bennett mystery series follows close to form of the pleasant puzzles we have discovered on each outing with Lee Harris. The re-introduction of ex-nun (for 15 years) Chris to the secular world doesn't get as much play as it did earlier: during the last almost three years since she left the convent she has dated, married, and in this book spends the first few weeks with her new baby, Eddie. Indeed, although irrelevant to the plot, we get a pretty steady dose of Eddie nursing, getting his first bottle, his first time home alone with his father (NYPD detective Jack), his first sleep through the night, and his first time visit to "day care". Together with a partially humorous incident where Chris is briefly detained at a rural police station for "nursing in public" (a little improbable since it was in the front seat of her own car), it occurred to us our author might have been weaving a bit of an ulterior message about life with new children into the story; and if so, fine.
The main plot is a slight departure from the mysteries of most of the other books, where the crime in question (usually murder) is long ago stale and unsolved, and seemingly right up the friendly and inquisitive amateur sleuth Chris' alley. Here the object of concern is Susan Stark, missing daughter of a couple with whom Chris and Jack spend a big New Year's Eve bash along with their friends the Golds (an attorney with whom Chris frequently consults or does little chores for...). Some very clever investigating by Chris over the next few days (not much the police can do with a missing adult) leads her to a cottage in the upstate New York woods where a dead body resembling the missing woman lies murdered on the kitchen floor. A long series of twists and turns leads Chris to one interesting discovery after another, delivering an entertaining enigma suspense-laden to close to the final pages. Revealing more would spoil this well-crafted tale of family intrigue and hateful revenge.
We felt having Chris solve a contemporaneous crime leant a little more credibility to the story than in some of the previous cases. When the trails are 30 years old, and half the witnesses dead or elderly, it gets a little harder to believe the quantity of fresh clues that just happen to surface to Chris that never cropped up during the official investigation. So that minor quibble we have occasionally felt with some of Harris' earlier books is absent here.
In sum, we have another well-written entry in the series. Our leading characters continue to develop, the puzzling mysteries are satisfying without being overly complex; and when we finish each looking forward to the next, alles ist gut!
This 9th entry in the Christine Bennett mystery series follows close to form of the pleasant puzzles we have discovered on each outing with Lee Harris. The re-introduction of ex-nun (for 15 years) Chris to the secular world doesn't get as much play as it did earlier: during the last almost three years since she left the convent she has dated, married, and in this book spends the first few weeks with her new baby, Eddie. Indeed, although irrelevant to the plot, we get a pretty steady dose of Eddie nursing, getting his first bottle, his first time home alone with his father (NYPD detective Jack), his first sleep through the night, and his first time visit to "day care". Together with a partially humorous incident where Chris is briefly detained at a rural police station for "nursing in public" (a little improbable since it was in the front seat of her own car), it occurred to us our author might have been weaving a bit of an ulterior message about life with new children into the story; and if so, fine.
The main plot is a slight departure from the mysteries of most of the other books, where the crime in question (usually murder) is long ago stale and unsolved, and seemingly right up the friendly and inquisitive amateur sleuth Chris' alley. Here the object of concern is Susan Stark, missing daughter of a couple with whom Chris and Jack spend a big New Year's Eve bash along with their friends the Golds (an attorney with whom Chris frequently consults or does little chores for...). Some very clever investigating by Chris over the next few days (not much the police can do with a missing adult) leads her to a cottage in the upstate New York woods where a dead body resembling the missing woman lies murdered on the kitchen floor. A long series of twists and turns leads Chris to one interesting discovery after another, delivering an entertaining enigma suspense-laden to close to the final pages. Revealing more would spoil this well-crafted tale of family intrigue and hateful revenge.
We felt having Chris solve a contemporaneous crime leant a little more credibility to the story than in some of the previous cases. When the trails are 30 years old, and half the witnesses dead or elderly, it gets a little harder to believe the quantity of fresh clues that just happen to surface to Chris that never cropped up during the official investigation. So that minor quibble we have occasionally felt with some of Harris' earlier books is absent here.
In sum, we have another well-written entry in the series. Our leading characters continue to develop, the puzzling mysteries are satisfying without being overly complex; and when we finish each looking forward to the next, alles ist gut!
September 14, 2014
#9 in the Christine Bennett series. While at a New Year's Eve party at the home of lawyer, Christine hears of the disappearance of Susan Stark. Based on her success in solving several murders in the two years since she left the convent, she volunteers to look for Susan. Eventually, she tracks down an upstate address and finds a body that she assumes is Susan's. Although there is a resemblance, the dead girl is not Susan and when Susan comes home alive, she is a suspect in the murder. Despite being told by the lawyer to drop the investigation, Christine believe Susan is innocent and works to prove it. Christine's infant son has a large presence in the book, though he does not factor in the mystery or solution.
Christine Bennett series - When Susan Stark disappears on New Year's Eve, Christine Bennett steps into the missing girl's life and meets a Susan no one else knows, one who is haunted by a secret life and strange obsessions.
Christine Bennett series - When Susan Stark disappears on New Year's Eve, Christine Bennett steps into the missing girl's life and meets a Susan no one else knows, one who is haunted by a secret life and strange obsessions.
January 26, 2008
This is a cute series. Its about a nun who decides she wants to go out and solve murders. She meets a man and falls in love.
March 31, 2011
unsatisfactory solution, thoroughly nasty "victim," pulled out extra relation at end
May 2, 2013
This book was very slow starting and didn't get better till about half way through. The last half was interesting enough to rate it a 3, because I couldn't rate it 2 1/2!
September 7, 2013
fun, light, who dunnit
February 2, 2022
Christine Bennett mysteries are so excellent. I have adored each one I've read and anticipate the next happily
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews