Not a Creature Was Stirring

The first of the Gregor Demarkian stories, and one of the better ones. I don't know whether to put it in the first or second tier because it reads a little slowly for my taste. The puzzle is sound although the actual villian was one of my prime suspects by the end. Still, it's one of Haddam's stronger mysteries. If, like me, you find it promising but not perfect, please try Precious Blood or A Stillness in Bethlehem next.

After losing his wife Elizabeth to cancer, Gregor has taken early retirement from the FBI, and has returned to his old neighbourhood in Philadelphia in time for Christmas. Just as he's adapting to the urban renewal that has revamped Cavanaugh Street, he finds that his old reputation won't leave him alone...Father Tibor, Cavanaugh Street's Armenian Orthodox parish priest, has been approached by Robert Hannaford, with a proposition for Gregor. If Gregor will attend a family dinner at Engine House, Hannaford's mansion on the Main Line, Hannaford will make a generous donation to Father Tibor's church. Why would an old-money, elderly financier want an expert on poisons and serial murder to attend a quiet Christmas dinner with his wife and grown children?Gregor's boredom with his retirement is cured, as he reaches Engine House to find the police investigating Hannaford's murder.This is the first Demarkian Holiday Mystery (Christmas) and introduces Bennis Hannaford (one of Robert's daughters) and her dysfunctional family. The cast of characters of Cavanaugh Street introduced here includes Father Tibor (who escaped from the Soviet Union in the bad old days of the 1980s) and Donna Moradanyan. Donna's boyfriend, Peter, has disappeared since Donna became pregnant, so Gregor is enlisted to find Peter for her as the Hannaford case unfolds.There are a number of interesting subplots, not necessarily related to the murder; at least one for each of Hannaford's seven children. Anne Marie, the only one of the seven still living at Engine House, is falling apart while taking care of their mother, who is dying of multiple schlerosis. Chris and Bobby might both qualify as compulsive gamblers, in different ways, while Teddy has gambled (and lost) that his university's faculty would never find out that he's been plagiarizing his students' work. And so on...Haddam (a.k.a. Orania Papazoglou) concentrates on character development in this volume, particularly Bennis' family background (which is essential to the plot). If necessary, you can read the other books first, since she's careful not to name the killer in the other volumes of the series, even when discussing the events of this volume, but this one really should be read first. Cavanaugh Street changes over time, since the breakup of the Soviet Union and the consequent liberation of Armenia as an independent nation occurred while the earlier volumes were being written, and a number of immigrants move to the neighbourhood as a result.Should definitely be read before _Feast of Murder_ and _Bleeding Hearts_, since a few of the suspects for Robert Hannaford's murder can be eliminated if you've read them prior to _Not a Creature Was Stirring_.