Golden Age of Detective Fiction

Today, I’ve officially crossed the halfway mark in my #20BooksOfChristmas reading challenge set by That Happy Reader. We’re joining Mrs. Adela Bradley on her journey to the snowbound Cotswolds, where a local ghost may be haunting the Christmas holidays and committing murders.

The Story

Mrs. Bradley spends Christmas with her nephew Jonathan and his wife, Deb, in the Cotswolds, where she learns of a local ghost story about a vicar’s spirit seen at Groaning Spinney. While meeting the villagers, including the unpleasant and gossipy Tiny Fullalove, his cousin Bill Fullalove, a gruff but kind-hearted farmer Ed Brown, and the secretive estate caretaker Will North, Mrs. Bradley hears rumors of recent sightings of the ghost. After the holiday, anonymous poison pen letters stir tensions in the village, spreading damaging truths and lies.

Amid the chaos, a heavy snowfall reveals the body of Bill Fullalove eerily posed like the ghostly vicar. Later, the thaw uncovers the long-buried body of the Fullaloves’ housekeeper. Using her sharp intuition and clues such as dog collars and rabbit holes, Mrs. Bradley astutely pieces together the murder mystery, which has more to do with insurance fraud than a ghostly vicar. Joining a fox hunt, she cunningly sets a trap to expose the culprit behind the poison pen letters and the murders, bringing justice to the village.

The Review

Despite the promising premise of a ghostly Christmas haunting, Murder in the Snow falls short. As a reader expecting a refreshing break from the typical cozy Christmas mysteries, I was left disappointed by the book’s failure to live up to its potential.

One of the most frustrating aspects of Murder in the Snow is Mrs. Bradley’s uncharacteristic indecisiveness. Throughout the story, she seems to be in a constant state of dithering. From her reluctance to visit the Cotswolds to her hesitance to use her deductive powers, her indecision is a source of constant frustration.

The mystery, which has a rather pastoral setting, really sells the cossetted little farming village, blanketed with snow and blighted by a murder and a missing body. The murders, initially attributed to a local malevolent ghost, prove to run along much more mundane lines. In the hands of a master horror-mystery writer, this bait-and-switch would have been handled in a satisfactory debunking and a more tantalizing mystery that didn’t need a supernatural element.

However, the book quickly veers away from this promising start. Instead of exploring the ghostly story element, it becomes a relentless pursuit of answers to a possible insurance fraud. This shift in focus is a significant letdown, leaving this reader disappointed.

What a long time Mrs. Bradley takes on this mystery that runs from Christmas through spring, with Mrs. Bradley cackling and leering every other paragraph but very little investigating. Murder in the Snow is a slow, dull slog that squanders what could have been a delight, a haunting Christmas mystery.

There’s an intriguing subplot about poisoned pen letters that has several obvious allusions to Agatha Christie’s The Moving Finger, which perks the story up a bit. However, ultimately, these letters don’t incite anyone towards violence or malice—there’s just never-ending gossip about who the writer might be after the first batch is sent to villagers. This plot thread is dropped and then revived again at the reveal of the whole plot with tepid results.

The one bright spot in this overlong, meandering book is the fox hunt scene Mrs. Bradley participates in before the end of the book. Full of tension and lively character moments that have been sorely missing throughout the rest of the book, it injects some much-needed momentum to carry the book to its conclusion.

Murder in the Snow is a frustrating book with so many intriguing possibilities: a ghostly haunting, a fraud, a missing body, Christmas shenanigans, poisoned pen letters- and yet it’s one of the most deadly, dull mysteries I have ever read. I thought maybe I had inadvertently missed some vital clue or misunderstood the plot, so I re-read the book again. Nope.

Don’t waste your time reading Murder in the Snow. If you’re looking for a spooky Christmas mystery, I’d go with The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson, especially the audiobook version, and if you can get your hands on it. I am a casual reader of Mitchell’s work, and Murder in the Snow is far below her usual standard.

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#20BooksOfChristmas Reviews

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