★★★★★ 5
Any Francis Duncan mystery is a joy
Format: Paperback
As a lover of classic British mysteries, my chance discovery of this author from the mid-20th Century has been a real joy. Every page keeps my interest, which I cannot say about many mysteries I read by well-regarded authors. Duncan's books are also not guilty of that staple of modern mysteries that I am getting so weary of: a detective drowning in their personal angst, fighting emotional slings and arrows, and of course, a tragic love life, etc, which takes up so much of the bulk of his or her attention. Duncan's Miss Marple-like character Mordecai Tremaine is in many ways a very ordinary type of person, but he is able to blend in with quite different types of social groups; groups which fester with secrets, lies and a hidden murderer...until Tremaine untangles it all in his unassuming but brilliant way. He does it by observing people as much as by physical clues, which is similar to the Agatha Christie approach. This mystery, "Murder for Christmas" was not the typical "murder at a country house at Christmas" mystery which I thought it would be. It was quite surprising, startling, enthralling, and a joy to read.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2018
