This delightful Christmas mystery begins with Mother Anna, Father Oli, their fifteen-year-old son Ben, and their seven-year-old daughter Lily waking up on Christmas Eve after a party that left Anna with a hangover. When Anna goes into her larder to get food for breakfast, she discovers Father Christmas stabbed to death on the floor. Of course, it isn't the real Father Christmas, it's her boss Colin, who invited himself and insisted on being Santa so women would sit on his lap and give him a thrill. He is a pretty sleazy guy. But just no liking the guy is no real motive for murder; he would have been killed off a long time ago. Anna takes her family to Starbucks to avoid the dead body, but she tells Oli about it and goes back home to greet the police while Oli entertains the kids.
A police constable, Simons, and a Detective Sergeant Bacon arrive on the scene, and they destroy the crime scene, including the footprint that Anna, thankfully, took pictures of. The local police basically sent Laurel and Hardy; that's how incompetent the two are. They are more interested in getting back to the station to enjoy the Christmas party being held. Disheartened, Anna and her best friend Jennie decide to solve the mystery themselves, with the help of Oli. While they are doing this, they must clean up the party mess and get ready for Oli's parents, who are due on Christmas Day. His mother is a monster, the worst possible mother-in-law to Anna. Nothing is ever good enough.
The first suspects to come to mind are Colin's long-suffering wife and their son Bruce, who will inherit the company owned by his dad. Colin has a long-lost child from before he got married who has recently made contact. Anna places everyone down on her list as a suspect, including her friend and her children. There's also her brother Toby and his partner, who decided to set up a business selling doggie treats. Colin agreed to invest, but he had thoughts of his own on how the business should be run.
Ben is brought on board because it was hard keeping it a secret from him. Ben suggests that they look at the film from their front door, Ringer. Using this device, they can eliminate many suspects from the list. Will Anna solve the murder before her in-laws arrive? This hilarious mystery takes you on a jaunty ride through murder at Christmas. I highly recommend this novel, which is $2.99 on Kindle.
Quotes
No, Oli, I would think the baby did NOT sleep well. The baby is a demon baby from hell who I suspect is trying to drive me insane by waking at hourly intervals and then waiting until I have just drifted to sleep to start mewling like a possessed tiger cub.
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas p 2)
It really is true that the teenage years begin at seven.
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas P 3)
I wonder how many happy marriages are based on simmering resentment and petty acts of revenge.
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas P6)
I've always found it funny that we spend so long when our kids are little trying to get them to sleep longer, spending our days in a half-zombie state from being woken at 5am to watch the same three favourite episodes of Paw Patrol and then when they finally start sleeping, so many parents seem desperate to wake them up again.
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas, p. 22)
He doesn't know where we keep the pillowcases, he thinks washing up means dunking things in soapy water, and he snores like a congested walrus, but he lets me warm my cold feet on his hot legs in bed and he once booked the kids' appointmentsfor dental checkups completely unprompted, just because he knewtlhat it had been a year since they last went.
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas P170-1)
For a dare?!? Who on earth has a wank in someone else's larder at a Christmas party FOR A DARE? I worry about you sometimes.
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas P 190)
If I wasn't always asking myself what I was going to make for tea, perhaps I would have invented a groundbreaking technology by now, or come up with a cure for Alzheimer's. I swear, this is why a disproportionate number of important inventions and discoveries are made by men; it's because all the women are distracted by mental meal planning.
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas P 195)
If you can't accuse your very favourite lifelong best friend of murder occasionally then seriously, who can you accuse?
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas, pp. 232-3)
Someone really should make it much clearer to men that hearing things like “I've cleaned the toilets” is much more attractive than a six-pack or a head full of hair. Ask any woman, especiallya mother, about their preferred style of foreplay, and I bet plenty of them would say having my partner wash up without asking.
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas P 256-7)
That was the Nineties for you, though. The bigger the twat, the bigger the crush. Not like nowadays, where it's all kindness and inclusivity. Did I tell you that Susie at work was telling me that there's a kid in her daughter's class that gets bullied for not being neurodiverse or having a diagnosed mental health condition?
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas, pp. 299-300)
A very wise decision, a very wise decision indeed, as I am trained in the art of Feng Shui and I am not afraid to use it.
What are you going to do, asks Jennie, rearrange fer furniture to flow her into jail?
Jo Middleton (Happy Bloody Christmas, p. 315)
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