September 18, 2017
The selections in this solid second posthumous collection from MWA Grand Master James (after 2016’s The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories) explore variations of the theme of looking back on past violent incidents. In “The Yo-Yo,” a yo-yo that a septuagenarian played with as a child sparks memories of a murder that occurred while he was in prep school; the tale ends with an ironic twist. In “The Murder of Santa Claus,” the recollections of writer Charles Mickledore—the creator of an aristocratic sleuth dismissed by critics as “a pallid copy of Peter Wimsey”—about a long-ago murder case alternate with those of elderly Det. Insp. John Pottinger. James pokes fun at herself when Mickledore remarks, “I’m no H.R.F. Keating, no Dick Francis, not even a P.D. James.” The standout is “The Victim,” in which the cuckolded first husband of Princess Ilsa Mancelli, who was a film and TV star before marrying into royalty, plots revenge. James (1920–2014) was just as gifted an author of short stories as she was a novelist. Agent: Carol Heaton, Greene & Heaton Ltd. (U.K.).
September 15, 2017
Half a dozen more reprinted stories, originally published between 1973 and 2005, from the late doyenne of the formal English mystery in all its majesty.As in The Mistletoe Murder (2016), the brief, nondescript introduction, this time by Peter Kemp, gives no information about the dates or original publication venues of these wondrous tales. But fans hungry for scraps from James' table will revel in the stories themselves. Ironically, only "The Murder of Santa Claus," the longest of them, is a traditional whodunit, using a meticulously evoked country-house setting at Christmas 1939 to bring together an uncomfortable roster of guests and a venerable host who's first threatened and then killed shortly after he makes the midnight rounds as Father Christmas. The rest of them mostly explore the favorite subject of James' short fiction: how people no worse than you get or keep the power they crave by conniving in, carrying out, or concealing murders. The earliest of them, "The Victim," is the confession of a timid librarian who killed the man who stole his beautiful wife; it ends with a disquieting twist. "A Very Desirable Residence" matter-of-factly shows the pains a killer will take to secure the eponymous dwelling. "Mr. Millcroft's Birthday," first published as "The Man Who Was Eighty," uses another confession of murder to turn conniving family members against each other in a memorably heartless game of cat and mouse. "The Yo Yo," which recalls another Christmas visit cut short by murder, is notable for a telling change it makes from its earlier appearance as "Hearing Ghote": the narrator's highly questionable actions are no longer inspired by an H.R.F. Keating novel he's reading but by the more neutral-seeming Treasure Island. Best of all is "The Girl Who Loved Graveyards," which irradiates the story of an orphaned girl whose memories of her late father and grandmother have fed her unwholesome attachment to cemeteries with a sense of hyperliterate creepiness.Ceremonious, nasty, and very welcome indeed.
COPYRIGHT(2017) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
October 15, 2017
In this posthumously published compilation (after The Mistletoe Murders and Other Stories), the clues sometimes lead the reader astray, and the innocent may actually be guilty. In "The Yo-Yo," an old man looks back at a childhood Christmas holiday that challenged his sense of right and wrong and forever changed his life. "The Victim" describes a mild-mannered teacher in love with a beautiful yet mistreated woman. "The Murder of Santa Claus" is a locked-room mystery turned on its head by the "honesty" of a child. James ventures lightly into the realm of horror with "The Girl Who Loved Graveyards," as the main character, obsessed with caring for the dead, revisits her childhood home. A bully is the focus of "A Very Desirable Residence," although, the identity of the culprit may surprise you. Finally, an elderly man makes sure that he will be relocated from his depressing retirement home by his ungrateful children in "Mr. Millcroft's Birthday." VERDICT Fans of classic British mysteries will enjoy this slim collection of well-crafted tales, each with its own twist.--Terry Lucas, Shelter Island P.L., NY
Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
October 1, 2017
Here's a treat for fans of the late P. D. James' crime fiction: a collection of six short stories, polished gems that spotlight her skills at plotting, building realistic characters, and conveying the subtlest hints of subtext through dialogue. Here are stories about a man who remembers becoming complicit in a killing 60 years earlier; another man who plots the murder of his ex-wife's new husband, with shocking consequences; a crime-fiction writer who played a role in the murder of his uncle; a girl who learns the truth about the deaths of her father and grandmother; a man who apparently tried to murder his wife; and a man who confesses, perhaps only in jest, to killing his own brother. Every one of these stories is first-rate, and every one of them is vintage James. A must-read for fans of one of the most influential crime-fiction authors of the twentieth century.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)