Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen by Vicki Delany Series: Year-Round Christmas Mystery #1
Published by Berkley on November 3, 2015
Source: Purchased
Genres: Cozy Mystery
Pages: 294
Format: eBook
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In Rudolph, New York, it’s Christmastime all year long. But this December, while the snow-lined streets seem merry and bright, a murder is about to ruin everyone’s holiday cheer…
As the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That’s why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoe-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry’s float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there’s a Scrooge in Christmas Town.
Merry isn’t ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph’s Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter’s body on a late night dog walk—and police suspect he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky—Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who’s really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa’s naughty list…
Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen is a fun cozy mystery set in the quirky town of Rudolph, New York. I love Rudolph, where it’s Christmas all year round. Rudolph is a tourist town and it’s December, the time of year when they have the most visitors and make the most money. But then a poisoned cookie kills a journalist who was doing a feature on the town. Was the journalist the target or is someone trying to ruin Christmas? It’s up to shop owner Merry Wilkinson to figure it all out, to keep her best friend Vicky, the baker of the cookie, out of jail and save Rudolph’s reputation.
While Merry is smart and resourceful, she gets some help from the locals, who are all charming. And her family is fabulous, from her Santa Claus dad to her former opera singer mom. Everyone in town, except for the killer, pulls together to salvage what they can of Christmas and the tourist season. Being a niche tourist town is not easy.
There were several suspects in the small town and I have to admit to being surprised by who the killer was. It made sense though and the clues tied in well. The book moves along quickly and had some pretty funny parts too. My one complaint is that there seems to be a love triangle developing and I do hate those. Other than that, this was a fun, Christmassy cozy.
About Vicki Delany
Vicki Delany is one of Canada’s most prolific and varied crime writers and a national bestseller in the U.S. She has written more than thirty books: clever cozies to Gothic thrillers to gritty police procedurals, to historical fiction and novellas for adult literacy. She is currently writing three cozy mystery series: the Sherlock Holmes Bookshop series for Crooked Lane, the Year Round Christmas mysteries for Penguin Random House and, as Eva Gates, the Lighthouse Library series, for Crooked Lane Books.
Vicki lives and writes in bucolic Prince Edward County, Ontario. She is a past president of the Crime Writers of Canada. Her work has been nominated for the Derringer, the Bony Blithe, the Ontario Library Association Golden Oak, and the Arthur Ellis Awards.
Rudolph would be a fun town to visit. (As long as you didn’t eat any of the cookies.) ;D
I might be doomed. I definitely could not stay away from the cookies.
I read this one awhile ago and enjoyed it. I want to get back to reading the rest of this series.
Apparently, I read one of the later ones last year but didn’t remember it at all. Of course, cozies do tend to blend together.