A Christmas scrooge discovers a murdered librarian in this holiday novel from an Edgar Award finalist known for her “witty, literate, and charming” mysteries (Publishers Weekly). Each December, the faculty of Balaclava Agricultural College goes wild with holiday decorations. The entire campus glitters with Christmas lights, save for one dark spot: the home of professor Peter Shandy. But after … Peter Shandy. But after years of resisting the school’s Illumination festival, Shandy suddenly snaps, installing a million-watt display of flashing lights and blaring music perfectly calculated to drive his neighbors mad. Then the horticulturalist flees town, planning to spend Christmas on a tramp steamer. It’s not long before he feels guilty about his prank and returns home to find his lights extinguished–and a dead librarian in his living room.
Hoping to avoid a scandal, the school’s head asks Shandy, sometimes detective, to investigate the matter quietly. After all, Christmas is big business, and the town needs the cash infusion that typically comes with the Illumination. But as Shandy will soon find out, there’s a dark side to even the whitest of white Christmases.
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Rutabagas, Christmas and murder
By Charles van Buren on April 18, 2018
Format: Kindle Edition
Charlotte MacLeod writes humor. She has almost as much in common with P.G. Wodehouse as she does with Agatha Christie. There is a mystery here, a quite interesting mystery but the real appeal to me is the quirky characters who inhabit Balaclava Agricultural College and the small communities of Balaclava Junction, Lumpkin Corners and environs. A case in point: Peter Shandy, proffesor of agrology, in partnership with his friend professor Timothy Ames, is propagator of a world renowned and highly profitable rutabaga, the Balaclava Buster. This has made both proffesors moderately wealthy and provides a steady source of funds to the college. Peter Shandy also counts things. Not particular things, just things. Rutabagas, pigs, counting, a profitable Christmas Illumination, agricultural college, small towns and murder. What’s not to like.