by: Vicki Delany
Series: A Year-Round Christmas Mystery
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Release Date: September 19, 2023
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
It’s beginning to look a lot like murder in the sixth installment of this charming cozy mystery series, perfect for fans of Donna Andrews and Jacqueline Frost.
It’s the beginning of December in Rudolph, New York, America’s Christmas Town, and business is brisk at Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, a gift and décor shop owned by Merry Wilkinson. The local amateur dramatic society is intensely preparing a special musical production of A Christmas Carol. But it’s not a happy set, as rivalries between cast and crew threaten the production.
Tensions come to a head when a member of the group is found dead shortly after a shopping excursion to Mrs. Claus’s Treasures. Was someone looking to cut out the competition? Everyone in the cast and crew is a potential suspect, including Aline, Merry’s mother, and Merry’s shop assistant Jackie O’Reilly, who was desperate for a starring role.
It could be curtains for Christmas—and for Merry—unless the killer can be ferreted out of the wings.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a mystery novel without some tension and disagreement, and in the sixth book in the series, Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas, the local amateur dramatic society is putting on the musical version of A Christmas Carol. Tensions are running high as members of the cast argue for bigger and better parts, more songs, more stage time. They argue over costumes and whether the handsome young newcomer would be better suited to the role of Scrooge than the long-timer. Maybe even, someone suggests, Scrooge should be played by a woman.
In the center of all the mayhem is Merry’s mother Aline Steiner, no stranger to the stage. She’s a retired soloist from the Metropolitan opera and helping out the production as what she sees as her civic duty.
The director and former artistic director of the Rudolph Community Theater Players came on pilgrimage once a year to the house to beg her to join the group. In her glory days, my mom had been a professional opera singer. Not just a singer, but a true diva. She’s sung solo parts with the Metropolitan Opera and at some of the best opera houses in Europe, including a sold-out performance of Madama Butterfly at La Scala, in which she sang Suzuki.
With her travel and performance schedule, it had largely been my dad—solid, sensible, small-town dad—who’d raised my three younger siblings and me. Mom was retired now, and she kept her hand in teaching vocal lessons to local children and a few adults who’d always wanted to sing but never had the chance to learn formally. She might be retired, but she was still every inch the diva. She’d never had anything but scorn for amateur theatrics. To everyone’s surprise, probably hers most of all, she agreed to appear with the Rudolph Community Theater Players in this year’s production of A Christmas Carol. Desmond Kerslake, the director, told her they’d be doing the musical version, and they desperately needed her help.
She not only would play the Ghost of Christmas Past, as well as Belle, Scrooge’s former fiancée, but she served as the musical coach. When I’d asked how she could play both the ghost and Belle when the ghost shows Scrooge his youth, she said, “With a bit of deft maneuvering from stage left to center and a flick of a cape. Belle has the strongest female song in the entire production, no one else is remotely capable of doing it.” She tried not to smile too widely as she said it.
“This,” she now declared dramatically, “is going to be the death of me.” All that was missing was the back of the hand held to the forehead and the drop into the fainting couch. “If not of me, likely someone else.”
With her travel and performance schedule, it had largely been my dad—solid, sensible, small-town dad—who’d raised my three younger siblings and me. Mom was retired now, and she kept her hand in teaching vocal lessons to local children and a few adults who’d always wanted to sing but never had the chance to learn formally. She might be retired, but she was still every inch the diva. She’d never had anything but scorn for amateur theatrics. To everyone’s surprise, probably hers most of all, she agreed to appear with the Rudolph Community Theater Players in this year’s production of A Christmas Carol. Desmond Kerslake, the director, told her they’d be doing the musical version, and they desperately needed her help.
She not only would play the Ghost of Christmas Past, as well as Belle, Scrooge’s former fiancée, but she served as the musical coach. When I’d asked how she could play both the ghost and Belle when the ghost shows Scrooge his youth, she said, “With a bit of deft maneuvering from stage left to center and a flick of a cape. Belle has the strongest female song in the entire production, no one else is remotely capable of doing it.” She tried not to smile too widely as she said it.
“This,” she now declared dramatically, “is going to be the death of me.” All that was missing was the back of the hand held to the forehead and the drop into the fainting couch. “If not of me, likely someone else.”
Purchase Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas from:
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The A Year-Round Christmas Series:
Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen ~ Review
We Wish You a Murderous Christmas ~ Review
Hark the Herald Angels Slay ~ Review
Silent Night, Deadly Night ~ Review
Places to find Vicki Delany:
You can follow the Have Yourself a Deadly Little Christmas Blog Tour here.
Thanks so much for featuring the book today. Merry Early Christmas to all.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. I love this series. I need to read Dying in a Winter Wonderland, before I get to this one. Congratulations on the new release.
DeleteSounds like a great read.
ReplyDelete