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Just because it's the season of lights doesn't mean you can't look on the dark side.
Aside from such party games as flinging small twigs of mistletoe at people who are all sunshine and light--oh, wait, that's just me--there are other fine seasonal traditions, like, um, oh yes, the subgenre of murder mysteries set at hollyday time!
Thanks to my new reading chair (it's name is Ektor and yes, it is an Ikea chair) along with many cups of Earl Grey tea and many clementines, I have been snuggling up to a number of seasonal mysteries. Two of my favorites have been _Envious Casca_ by Georgette Heyer (1941) and _Corpus Christmas_ by Margaret Maron (1989).
A pile of Heyer mysteries recently showed up on Bookshare and, sad to say, her mysteries have not aged nearly as well as those of her contemporary, Dorothy Sayers (although Sayers seems to be one of the few detective fiction writers since Christie who didn't write any mysteries set during Christmas).
Heyer's mysteries follow a very narrow pattern: a female protagonist, not wealthy but not in a situation where she has to do anything as tedious as rub shoulders with the working class, finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery, often at an English country house and typically featuring the murder of a rich old curmudgeonly male relative. The rest of the cast are types, including the saturnine smarter-than-everyone-else male lead, who often treats the female protagonist like an annoying and intellectually inferior younger sister. Heyer's mysteries show particularly poorly if you read a series of them close together, as the sexism and classism becomes difficult to ignore. I would recommend _Envious Casca_ as one of the best, however, along with _Death in the Stocks_.
_Corpus Christmas_ features a murder set in a historical Victorian house, and the protagonist is a female New York City detective. I really enjoyed this unique female character. There is also a mentally disabled character who features prominently in the story and does not ultimately prove to be an evil gimp.
[Dear Mystery Writers of the World, pay attention! Novels such as Away with the Fairies by Kerry Greenwood (2001) and _Larceny and Lace_ by Annette Blair (2009), which both end with the twaddle that the gimp did it because being disabled makes you psychologically twisted and feeling that the world owes you, is both blatant stereotyping and poor writing.]
Back to seasonal murder mysteries, the next on my list is the anthology _Murder is No Mitzvah_. _A Puzzle in a Pear Tree_ was skipped over because, although I understand that people do say things like "Whatcha" and "gonna" etc., reading these words in every other sentence really irks me. Also, just for fun, I'm reading _Norse Code_ by Greg van Ekout (2009)--valkyries, Ragnorak, and Loki's kids running amok, how cool is that??
Lastly, Here is a nice bit of dark tradition which I hadn't known about: Krampus
http://www.mindonfire.com/2010/12/07/krampusnacht/
Now I'm off to play Christmas carols and scan a book on serial killers and philosophy which I need to read for review. It's amazing how ominous many holiday songs sound when you really listen tot he words...
Aside from such party games as flinging small twigs of mistletoe at people who are all sunshine and light--oh, wait, that's just me--there are other fine seasonal traditions, like, um, oh yes, the subgenre of murder mysteries set at hollyday time!
Thanks to my new reading chair (it's name is Ektor and yes, it is an Ikea chair) along with many cups of Earl Grey tea and many clementines, I have been snuggling up to a number of seasonal mysteries. Two of my favorites have been _Envious Casca_ by Georgette Heyer (1941) and _Corpus Christmas_ by Margaret Maron (1989).
A pile of Heyer mysteries recently showed up on Bookshare and, sad to say, her mysteries have not aged nearly as well as those of her contemporary, Dorothy Sayers (although Sayers seems to be one of the few detective fiction writers since Christie who didn't write any mysteries set during Christmas).
Heyer's mysteries follow a very narrow pattern: a female protagonist, not wealthy but not in a situation where she has to do anything as tedious as rub shoulders with the working class, finds herself in the middle of a murder mystery, often at an English country house and typically featuring the murder of a rich old curmudgeonly male relative. The rest of the cast are types, including the saturnine smarter-than-everyone-else male lead, who often treats the female protagonist like an annoying and intellectually inferior younger sister. Heyer's mysteries show particularly poorly if you read a series of them close together, as the sexism and classism becomes difficult to ignore. I would recommend _Envious Casca_ as one of the best, however, along with _Death in the Stocks_.
_Corpus Christmas_ features a murder set in a historical Victorian house, and the protagonist is a female New York City detective. I really enjoyed this unique female character. There is also a mentally disabled character who features prominently in the story and does not ultimately prove to be an evil gimp.
[Dear Mystery Writers of the World, pay attention! Novels such as Away with the Fairies by Kerry Greenwood (2001) and _Larceny and Lace_ by Annette Blair (2009), which both end with the twaddle that the gimp did it because being disabled makes you psychologically twisted and feeling that the world owes you, is both blatant stereotyping and poor writing.]
Back to seasonal murder mysteries, the next on my list is the anthology _Murder is No Mitzvah_. _A Puzzle in a Pear Tree_ was skipped over because, although I understand that people do say things like "Whatcha" and "gonna" etc., reading these words in every other sentence really irks me. Also, just for fun, I'm reading _Norse Code_ by Greg van Ekout (2009)--valkyries, Ragnorak, and Loki's kids running amok, how cool is that??
Lastly, Here is a nice bit of dark tradition which I hadn't known about: Krampus
http://www.mindonfire.com/2010/12/07/krampusnacht/
Now I'm off to play Christmas carols and scan a book on serial killers and philosophy which I need to read for review. It's amazing how ominous many holiday songs sound when you really listen tot he words...
