The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by P.D. James

Included in this collection of mysteries is "The Mistletoe Murder", "A Very Commonplace Murder", "The Boxdale Inheritance", and The Twelve Clues of Christmas."  In "The Mistletoe Murder" a young war widow in 1940 England goes to the country to visit her grandmother whom she barely knows before starting the Women's Auxiliary Air Force.  She doesn't expect to see her cousin Paul there but it is a welcome sight.  Also, there is Paul's second cousin Rowland who specialized in coins and was there to look at some coins for her grandmother who was looking to sell them.  The young widow took an instant dislike to him.  Right before ten o'clock her grandmother opened the safe and set the coins on the desk in the library for Rowland to look at and went to bed. At ten-thirty Paul went up to see her off to bed.  Then the war widow went up to say goodnight to her and she noticed two things: six mistletoes had fallen from the branch above the library door and a puddle of water was at the foot of the stairs.  The next day Rowland is found murdered inside the library with the key inside the lock and the windows open and a set of footprints leading up to the window and a set leading away from the window.  He had been hit over the head with a blunt object and his watch had been smashed perhaps to confused the time of death.  However, Paul spent the entire night with the war widow except for when he was going up to visit the grandmother.  No one else could have done it but how did he do it and when did he do it and why? Will she get her answers?

Two of the mysteries have James's famous detective Adam Dalgliesh.  They are "The Boxdale Inheritance" and "The Twelve Clue of Christmas".  In "The Boxdale Inheritance" Dalgleish has a godfather who is a Cannon and a very good and honest man who refuses to take an inheritance from "Great Aunt Allie" who got off the hook for murder but was generally believed to have murdered her much older husband.  Everyone is allied except for Miss Goddard who had no reason to want them dead.  Did she do it or is Great Aunt Allie really guilty? The other one "The Twelve Clue Christmas" has Dalgliesh visiting his Aunt on Christmas Eve when a man flags him down to use the phone to call the police because his uncle committed suicide.  Dalgliesh gives the twelve clues as to why he didn't commit suicide and who killed him.

This book is a delightful collection of murder mysteries that explore the locked room mystery, the guilty in the public eye verdict, the suicide that's not, and the reluctant witness that never comes forward.  James is a master at the craft of writing mysteries and this slim volume (if I have any complains it's that the book is too short) shows off her legendary skills in a perfect way.  I really enjoyed these short stories and I give this book five out of five stars.

Quotes

Death seems to provide the minds of the Anglo-Saxon race with a greater fund of innocent amusement than any other single subject.

          -Dorothy L. Sayers

          Bereavement is like a serious illness. One dies or one survives, and the medicine is time, not              a  change of scene.
          -P.D.James (The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories p 4)

          I"d better introduce myself. Helmut Harkerville, and I"m not German. My mother liked the                  name. 
          -P.D. James (The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories p 125)

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