Play Book Tag discussion

BWF Steampunk letter only - E - Team Shadow & Flam


One of Vicar Tom Christmas' duties is serving as the chaplain to The Thistle But Mostly Rose South Devon Pipe Band. That's a bagpipe band, btw, and the words 'Thistle' and 'Rose' reference symbols in heraldry - Thistle is Scotland and Rose is England. It makes me laugh every time it is referenced and some of those references are quite amusing (as in there being a Lotus among them).

Anyway, back to the story. One of Father Christmas' prime annual duties is the saying of the blessing for the annual Robert Burns Diner for the Pipe Band, which of course is held in January right after the holidays and features haggis, 'taters, and 'nips. Poor Tom, he's only been in the village a few months and not looking forward to his first haggis experience, and no one will tell him if other food is served, just 'promising a surprise.' Well, there is a surprise but not what anyone expected. The host, a man in his prime named Will is found dead from yew berry poisoning partway through the dinner. Oh and to complicate matters, there is a blizzard raging across England, making roads impassable and shrinking the dinner attendees from the customary 20 to a mere 11 pipers plus the chaplain.

As the days go by, and the assumption is made it was murder, Father Christmas finds himself learning more about the secrets within this village than perhaps he's comfortable learning, especially about those he feels a beginning friendship with. Along the way, we the reader are treated to a wonderful cast of characters, plenty of humor, great traditions like the Wassail Celebration (also held in January) and making of wassail lanterns, and quite a complex mystery. I did guess many aspects of the solution to the layers of the murder mystery, but I didn't have them arranged in the solution. One of its strengths to me is how the vicar is not a stereotypical vicar found in murder mysteries or other fiction set in small towns. He's a widower with a young child, well-educated and traveled, with a rather unusual history. He's a vibrant physical man in his prime, who is struggling with the return of sexual longings that have been dormant since his wife's death, as well as issues of single parenting and when exactly does he take off his wedding ring. So is the other vicar we meet briefly -- who has a hot wife and is wearing motorcycle leathers and is a member of a biker club of others in religious orders.

This reads so much like an Agatha Christie mystery, though contemporary, that it had me smiling. Though at nearly 500 pages, it's a tad long, lingering in village life and relationships far more than Dame Agatha every did. This is 2nd in a series in which only 3 books and a short story were published of a planned 12 book series. Alas the publisher elected to drop the series and the author did not press on with it. I wish he'd reconsider. These are far superior to much of the cozy mysteries being published today.