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Murder for Christmas
Murder for Christmas
Oct 27, 2024 8:30 PM

Author:Francis Duncan,Geoffrey Beevers

Murder for Christmas

Mordecai Tremaine, former tobacconist and perennial lover of romance novels, has been invited to spend Christmas in the sleepy village of Sherbroome at the country retreat of one Benedict Grame.

Arriving on Christmas Eve, he finds that the revelries are in full flow - but so too are tensions amongst the assortment of guests.

Midnight strikes and the party-goers discover that it's not just presents nestling under the tree...there's a dead body too. A dead body that bears a striking resemblance to Father Christmas.

With the snow falling and the suspicions flying, it's up to Mordecai to sniff out the culprit - and prevent someone else from getting murder for Christmas.

'Kept guessing to the end, I am left wondering why it has taken so long to discover Francis Duncan… With some 20 crime novels to his credit, a relaunch seems long overdue'

Daily Mail

'Who can resist a seasonal whodunnit? This is a bah-humbug’s ideal read'

Lady

'The book nods towards Agatha Christie but retains a crackling atmosphere of dread and horror that will chill the heart however warm your fireside'

Metro

'A wonderfully cosy read and a great way to while away a winter’s evening'

Nudge

'This is a golden age murder mystery that’ll certainly appeal to lovers of Agatha Christie – or anyone who enjoys a good, old-fashioned whodunit… This is a book that could be read at any time of year but would certainly make perfect festive reading. It has humour, excellent characterisation and a gentle tone that would sit well following the after-Queen’s Speech nap'

crimefictionlover

Reviews

The book nods towards Agatha Christie but retains a crackling atmosphere of dread and horror that will chill the heart however warm your fireside

—— Claire Allfree , Metro

Kept guessing to the end, I am left wondering why it has taken so long to discover Francis Duncan […] With some 20 crime novels to his credit, a relaunch seems long overdue.

—— Barry Turner , Daily Mail

A classic murder mystery

—— Bookseller

This is a bah-humbug’s ideal read

—— Lady

A wonderfully cosy read and a great way to while away a winter’s evening

—— Erin Britton , Nudge

A delightful festive murder mystery

—— Nudge

Hard to know what to praise first here: the operatic sweep of this mesmerising novel; the surefooted orchestration of tension; or the vividly realised sense of time and place; all of these factors mark Jack Grimwood's Moskva out as something special in the arena of international thrillers

—— Barry Forshaw , Financial Times

Memorable characters, powerful recreations of history and an unrelenting pace that will keep you breathless. A striking début in the genre.

—— Maxim Jakubowski

A sublime writer . . . I felt glimmers of Le Carré shining through the prose.

—— CrimeSquad

If you love thrillers Jack Grimwood is the name you need to remember...

—— Viv Groskop , BBC Radio 2, Sara Cox Show

Gripping . . . like an ecclesiastical version of House of Cards

—— The Times

Well-researched, intelligently observed and highly credible . . . Fast-moving and suspenseful, it’s elegantly written entertainment from a first-rate storyteller.

—— Mail on Sunday

Grips like a vice and manages to convey all the drama of an election without resorting to melodrama

—— Jake Kerridge , Sunday Express

An electric read, like a shot of adrenalin to the heart . . . rollicking and literate . . . an insightful and witty thriller

—— Tim Stanley , Literary Review

Page-turning heaven

—— Alice Jones , Independent

Slick and fast-paced

—— Express

this year's most highly anticipated psychological thriller

—— Sunday Times

addictive

—— Observer

If you like your books twisty and your narrators unreliable and flawed, this is for you

—— Cosmopolitan

Wow, now I know why it has caused such a stir. Taut, tight, utterly compulsive. Once you embark you won't want to get off until the very last stop

—— Tammy Cohen

Artfully crafted and utterly riveting. The Girl on the Train's clever structure and expert pacing will keep you perched on the edge of your seat, but it's Hawkins' deft, empathetic characterization that will leave you pondering this harrowing, thought-provoking story about the power of memory and the danger of envy.

—— Kimberly McCreight, New York Times-bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia

Damn you #girlonthetrain . . . you unputdownable, you. So twisty, compassionate and gritty. Loved it. Deserves to be massive

—— Tweet from Julia Crouch

Going to be THE book of 2015. Sexy, smart & v intricately plotted

—— Tweet from Eva Dolan

Brilliant, fast-moving, very clever. Add to your January wish-list now!

—— Tweet from Mark Edwards

Be ready to be spell-bound . . . It's the kind of book you'll want to press into the hands of everyone you know, after you've turned the last page, just so they can share your obsession and you can relive it

—— Laura Kasischke, author of The Raising

Compulsively readable…. It actually hurt to put it down

—— JOY FIELDING, New York Times bestselling author of Now You See Her

I'm calling it now: The Girl on the Train is the next Gone Girl. Paula Hawkins' highly anticipated debut novel is a dark, gripping thriller with the shock ending you crave in a noir-ish mystery

—— Bustle

A gripping, down-the-rabbit-hole thriller

—— Entertainment Weekly (US)

Gone Girl fans will devour this psychological thriller . . . Hawkins' debut ends with a twist that no one - least of all its victims - have seen coming

—— People Magazine (US)

[Paula Hawkins] pulls off a thriller's toughest trick: carefully assembling everything we think we know, until it reveals the one thing we didn't see coming

—— Entertainment Weekly (US)

distinctive, intelligent and unpredictable

—— The Times

perfectly paced, from its arresting beginning to its twist ending; it's not an easy book to put down . . . what really makes The Girl on the Train such a gripping novel is Hawkins' remarkable understanding of the limits of human knowledge, and the degree to whcih memory and imagination can become confused

—— NPR.org

A complex and increasingly chilling tale courtesy of a number of first-person narratives that will wrong-foot even the most experienced of crime fiction readers

—— Irish Times

The Girl on the Train marries movie noir with novelistic trickery . . . hang on tight. You'll be surprised by what horrors lurk around the bend

—— USA Today

achieves a sinister poetry . . . Hawkins keeps the nastiest twist for last

—— Financial Times

[L]ike Gone Girl, Hawkins' book is a highly addictive novel about a lonely divorcee who gets caught up in the disappearance of a woman whom she had been surreptitiously watching. And beyond the Gone Girl comaparisons, this book has legs of its own

—— GQ.com

Hawkins' masterful deployment of unwittingly unreliable narration to evoke the aftershocks of abuse and trauma is a powerful way of exploring women's marginalization

—— Huffington Post

Springs new surprises on us . . .Pulses will be quickened

—— The Good Book Guide

The Girl on the Train has more fun with unreliable narration than any chiller since Gone Girl

—— New York Times

Halfway through and I can't stop reading it. My kinda thriller!

—— Tweet from Armistead Maupin

it's BLIDDY FABLISS, isn't it! A long long time since a book gripped me like this

—— Tweet from Marian Keyes

The Girl on the Train is one of those delicious thrillers that can be devoured in four sittings, that's two return journeys on a typical train trip! There's a whiff of Agatha Christie and a dollop of Gone Girl with plenty of blind alleys that we happily wander up and get lost in. Pick it up, solve the crime and pass it on . . .

—— Ryan Tubridy

Agatha Christie meets Rear Window...a taut psychological thriller that's chockful of chilling twists.

—— Mail on Sunday, Events Magazine

Clever, exciting and full of twists, this is undoubtedly the cream of this year's crop

—— Daily Mail

Unputdownable . . . the new literary sensation . . . nothing short of sensational

—— Daily Mail

...this unusual clammy-palmed thriller.

—— THE TIMES

Hawkins juggles perspectives and timescales with great skill, and considerable suspense builds up along with empathy for an unusual central character.

—— GUARDIAN
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