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Mystery in White: A Christmas Crime Story (British Library Crime Classics)

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What I'd forgotten were the awful snobbery -- you can tell one of the characters is a baddy because he's "common," and there are a few other remarks about the ghastliness of "common" people -- and a major plot flaw.

Here, the blizzard rages and the house stands empty but appears set for guests with a boiling kettle on the stove, fires ablaze in multiple hearths and tea set out. Whilst I don’t think I enjoyed this book as much as I did when I first read it, (Seven Dead is now definitely my top Farjeon read), there were still lots of things I enjoyed about it. Despite the excellent, yet misleading, cover, this story does not take place on a train but is essentially a country house mystery. She leaves behind no memories worth keeping: her husband is dead, her boss has made no bones about disliking her, and she’s looking forward to new responsibilities and the higher salary underwritten by North Dakota’s sudden oil boom. And I find myself in the midst of a serious vintage phase right now, so I'm sure I will read more of these.The Christmas setting is superb and one does get the feel for a snowbound house party and the storyline is passable, providing, of course, that one can keep it all together! But in the white-out, all they find are a series of ditches, and eventually a house—its door unlocked, tea boiling on the stove, fireplace roaring with warmth, and not a soul around to answer them. Nevertheless David’s comeback is a good one: ‘Because, Mr Hopkins, whenever anything has to be faced, you always go round and round the bush yourself, and so I have to go round and round the bush to catch up with you. No one in their right mind would get tea all ready only to leave the house in the middle of a snow storm.

Will all the stranded passenger survive the experience and what about the owner of the house whose food and beds they are making free with? Many of Farjeon's works had been forgotten, but the figure of Ben in Number 17 appeared again in a string of novels, including Ben on the Job (1932), reissued in 1955 and 1985. And there is a mysterious portrait that appears to be keeping an eye on all those present from its prominent position at the head of the stairs.In some ways I find it hard to pin down why the second half didn’t work for me quite so well as I presumed it would. The z Murders is too much of a thriller I think in that the protagonist ends up on a perilous adventure around England because he fancies a woman who is heavily implicated in a murder. And it’s even harder when you're trying to put your finger on precisely where the book disappointed you. However walking in unfamiliar countryside without a map and very little visibility is easier said than done.

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