Christmas – Carol's Notebook

The Mistletoe Murder Club by Katie Marsh

December 19, 2025December 19, 2025 by Carol6 Comments

I picked up The Mistletoe Murder Club, knowing it's the fourth book in the series and I haven't read any of the others. I am a sucker for a Christmas mystery and this one looked fun. The author did a good job of giving enough background without over explaining. Clio, Amber, and Jeanie are a fun team, but maybe rely more on luck and guesses than actual investigating. Clio is in a Christmas pantomime directed by the famous actress, Beatrice Butler. Unfortunately, there is tension among the cast members and Beatrice is not a nice person. When she ends up dead it's not surprising, the question is which one of them was angry enough to kill her. Detective Marco Santini is leading the investigation, but of course the women are determined to solve it. We have plenty of suspects and clues and the twist was decent. I'm not sure I'll bother going back and reading others in the series, but this...

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

December 15, 2025December 15, 2025 by Carol1 Comment

Needless to say, my family does not sit around the (electric) fire telling ghost stories on Christmas Eve - although I did make my friends play Snapdragons on New Years one year. I do think A Christmas Carol might be the perfect Christmas ghost story and who better to tell it than Tim Curry? We all know the story - Scrooge is visited by three ghosts, if you don't count Marley, on Christmas Eve and turns his life around. It's a spooky and funny and just a good story. I think I reread it most Decembers or watch one of the movie versions....

The Holly Village Murders by Benedict Brown

December 9, 2025December 9, 2025 by Carol1 Comment

Poor Bella. Her fiancé was recently killed and now her Aunt Adele is dead under mysterious circumstances. Marius Quin, our mystery novelist/ amateur detective, and Bella head to Holly Village, where Adele lived, to figure out what happened. The folks are an interesting lot, mostly older aristocrats, but it's hard for Marius and Bella to imagine any of them as the killer. Marius and Bella make a good team, although I'm a little tired of Marius' "I love her but can't tell her" bit. The banter between the two is fun and their strengths play off each other well. The mystery takes place over about two days. We get plenty of clues and the whodunnit might be a little obvious, but there are plenty of Christmas touches that make this a nice read for the season. It's well-researched and lets you feel immersed in the late 1920s in London. It's the 6th in the series but was written to be...

O, Deadly Night by Vicki Delany

November 26, 2025November 26, 2025 by Carol2 Comments

Rudolph, New York, is the place to be for Christmas - the town goes all out to welcome tourists to America’s Christmas Town. Merry once again doesn't win the best float in the Santa Claus parade, but all the shops in town are bustling. Also a new neighborhood has moved in across the street, but Mrs. D'Angelo thinks something is up. She never sees them and they won't answer the door when she tries to drop off cookies. Mrs. D'Angelo is one of those nosey neighbors and even asks Merry to mention the elusive new-comers to the police. Then Mrs. D'Angelo disappears and Merry realizes the older woman might have taken her snooping too far. Eventually, Merry finds Mrs. D'Angelo relatively unharmed - and a dead body. The killer is pretty easy to guess in this one, as is the motive, but the characters are fun to spend time with. Merry's family and friends are appropriately quirky and her dog...

And to All a Good Bite by David Rosenfelt

November 19, 2025November 19, 2025 by Carol3 Comments

I have to admit that the reason I read these books is Grove Gardner's narration. He is just perfect for Andy Carpenter's sarcasm and self-deprecating humor. This time around the dog-lover accused of murder is Jeff Wheeler. Two years ago, Jeff's girlfriend was killed when her office building exploded. Jeff has never made it a secret that he blamed her boss, Stanley Franklin, but now that Franklin is dead, murdered in his own home, Jeff is the main suspect. The reader of course knows Jeff is innocent, but Andy and his team need to convince the jury. The best way is to figure out who did do it, but as always that's easier said than done. The plot is put together well with a couple of nice twists. The courtroom scenes move at a good pace, but the dialogue in this series is always the highpoint. It's funny and sharp. And of course, we have adorable dogs. While the cover is adorable...

A Wonderful Christmas Crime by Jacqueline Frost

November 18, 2025November 18, 2025 by Carol4 Comments

It's Christmas time, which in Mistletoe, Maine, means another murder. This time around, the dead woman is in town with a antiques show, and was caught earlier on the evening she died trying to steal an antique decoration from a bakery. When the bakery owner, Alice, comes under suspicion, Holly want to help. Holly's husband, Sherriff Evan Gray, wants her to leave the mystery to him, especially since she's pregnant. It annoyed me how everyone treated Holly with kid gloves. Yes, she needed to pay attention to her blood pressure, but that's for her and her doctor to worry about - and maybe Evan, but definitely not everyone in town. She's an adult woman with five solved murders to her credit. She doesn't need baby sitters and constant reminders to watch what she eats. I'll grant you, it frustrated her too, and she did tell her friends and family to back off, but so much of the story was wasted on...