A Christmas Party: A Seasonal Murder Mystery/Envious Casca

The book arrived a little late, but was in good condition, and since it was the holidays, not the fault of the company. Very nice people to work with.

Plot Summary: A Christmas house party is arranged at a wealthy old bachelor's house against his wishes. Present are his brother and sister-in-law, his nephew and niece, a playwright, a ditzy beauty, a kind Plain Jane and a business partner. These personalities collide, however, and the house party is more explosive than congenial. Then the host is found dead in a locked room, and suddenly, everyone is a suspect. Inspector Hemingway must sort through the lies and the politics to determine who killed the wealthy host. And what does The Life of the Empress Catherine have to do with everything? My Thoughts: For some reason, the characters that populate Heyer's contemporary mysteries are not nearly as easy to empathize with as those in her historical novels. The mysteries are usually populated with rude and unkind people, most of whom dislike each other and the person who was killed. I don't know why this is the case, and I'll spare you all my psychological theories :-) However, even with generally unlikable characters, Georgette Heyer can write a very good story. This one is no exception. Even though most of the characters were unlikable, their conversations were hilarious. There were so many snide remarks, so many one-off insults, and so many ridiculously funny situations (particularly the scene in which the playwright shares his play) that it was impossible not to giggle. And the mystery, too, really caught my interest. Though I had an idea of who committed the crime early on in the novel (which is saying a lot, as I never know those things), it was very interesting to see how it happened. While I don't like Inspector Hemingway nearly as much as I like Inspector Hannasyde, this was a great English country home mystery.

This was a really good book. The mystery had me stumped for a long time, but made perfect sense at the end. I hate it when the secret killer's movements and motive are just tacked on at the end as a twist. The characters were funny and Detective Hemingway was in his prime. Also, I read the book at Christmas and it takes place at a Christmas party gone bad, which made my own family problems seem much funnier.

To my way of thinking this is Georgette Heyers best mystery. I am not usually a mystery reader but I like her gothic romances and I thought I would try this one. She has such a good sense of humor and this book did not disappoint me. I have since read all of her mysterys that I could find. In this one Heyer takes one crabby bachelor uncle, one sweetness and light uncle, an actress niece and her long-haired playwrite, a sarcastic nephew and his blond bimbo fiance, one friend of the family, one business partner, and mixes them with a Christmas party. Out comes an impossible murder. I never figured out "who done it" until the very end. Heyers Inspector Hemingway is a great character and I would know him in a minute if I met him. Georgette Heyer at her best, it's well worth the reading if you can find it.