Mr. Canning is a curmudgeon, he's mean, nasty, selfish and doesn't give a care about anyone or what anyone else thinks. His actions in the past have been horrendous, yet he didn't deserve to be murdered. He's not quite a two-dimensional character. Something Ellie said resonated with him and made him pause to think. It also gave me an idea of what happened. Overall, a delightful, fun and entertaining read but try not to read when you’re hungry as I guarantee you’ll want to reach for the cake tin! If you like Christie or Dorothy Sayers then I think it’s well worth giving this novel a go. I love the cover too. Although an appearance by Lord Peter Wimsey would have been welcome, in Dorothy L Sayers’ Sleuths on the Scent, it is the delightfully named Mr Montague Egg who takes refuge in the bar-parlour of the Pig and Pewter during a snowstorm and finds himself with an opportunity to unmask a fugitive from justice. A number of other people are likewise sheltering in the hostelry and, as their convivial talk turns to the whereabouts of suspected murderer Gerald Beeton, it becomes increasingly likely that the killer might be hiding among them. Unmasking the murderer relies on insight into the life and business of the typical commercial traveller, a character once a staple of crime fiction who has since been erased from the genre by the passage of time.

PDF / EPUB File Name: Murder_in_the_Falling_Snow_-_Cecily_Gayford.pdf, Murder_in_the_Falling_Snow_-_Cecily_Gayford.epub Murder in the Falling Snow covers the same ground. It’s edited by Cecily Gayford and is the latest in a series from Profile Books featuring chilly tales in which the freezing conditions play an integral part. Indeed, the flames of fury do not necessarily diminish with time. Rather, time tends to feed them. Brooding over old injuries all too often leads to one result… Revenge… I listened to the audiobook version, which was released in March this year and was narrated with brio by Patience Tomlinson (shame about the cover). At Christmas I like to read a good murder mystery, particularly if it has a Christmas theme - I'd not come across Gladys Mitchell before, but I was encouraged by a quote from a Guardian review, likening it to Miss Marple. And the Cotswold setting was attractive, as it's just up the road from where I live.Thank you to NetGalley for a free advanced review copy of this book. All opinions expressed in the review are entirely my own and not affected by the giveaway. This is such a fun read with great characters, plenty of suspects to confuse you, red herrings to distract you and a touch of romance to sweeten it all. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys Agatha Christie and Vivian Conroy mysteries also set in this era. Lady Swift is wonderful. She's smart and spunky, kind and determined, and I love that she is also independant. She gets herself into trouble, but she very often also gets herself OUT of trouble too. The fact that she's a strong woman who can take care of herself is a big draw for me. And, not to mention, the ending pretty much leaves it open for another important mystery to be solved, though of course the mystery in question might either be solved in the next book or over the course of several of the next books in the series.

But this is not the only disturbance: a woman goes missing, and some poison letters make their rounds through the village. Yeah, it had a lot of similarities with Christie's The Moving Finger (published nearly ten years earlier): But what an end! Mrs Bradley and her nephew literally try and hunt down the villain - on a fox hunt. Yes, it is dated. Very dated in parts, but some of the dialogue still makes me smile, even tho I have no idea how it progresses the plot. And let's face it, that plot needed progressing. Badly.She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939. During a fun run, one of the participants ends up dying. And Lady Eleanor is immediately on the case with her loyal driver Clifford who is always a hoot to watch. That guy just makes these books sing! Format note: I get these books on audio, and the narrator is wonderful! She does an excellent job bringing all the characters and their personalities fully to life through her narration. If you like audio books, I highly recommend this series on audio. I love this series! It's fun, it's light, it's easy-reading and it never fails to charm and entertain me. A go-to for when I just want to enjoy myself. Apart from Gladstone looking the cutest he's ever looked on the cover, wowee and I cannot believe how this author can keep it all up!

The murder mystery was a good one and, although I called the killer I could not guess their motives. I had no idea Christmas Day could be so exhausting… And I thought being a Lady of the Manor was all about languishing on chaise lounges and chiding the tradesmen! I thoroughly enjoyed Murder in the Snow which is a fun read with a good mystery attached, i.e. I had no idea of the perpetrator’s identity. This is the first novel in the series that I have read but it won’t be the last. I loved that it is told entirely from Lady Eleanor’s point of view as it means that there are no distractions and the reader knows what she knows, nothing more and nothing less. There are plenty of suspects as Canning was not a nice man and plenty of motives as he’s a man with a past. The solution comes out of left field although the clues are maybe there if the reader looks hard enough. There is much to like about Murder in the Snow (originally published as Groaning Spinney), most of all I loved the scene setting: Mrs Bradley visits her nephew and his new wife for the Christmas holidays in the Cotswolds and just as they settle in, the snow begins to fall. And keeps on falling, cutting off the village community from the outside world. As the snowfall stops and roads begin to clear, a body is discovered. On her first year as lady of the manor, Lady Swift is playing host to the entire village at Henley Hall for Christmas Eve celebrations but, when one of her guests ends up dead during a race, she finds herself involved once again in a murder investigation.There’s something horribly eerie about snow in the country. I’d never realized it before. It’s so silent. I’d rather have rain, and hear the sound of it.’ There isn’t actually a bum note in the entire collection. While some are better than others (I particularly enjoyed the aforementioned Wallace as well as Chesterton’s ‘The Sign of the Broken Sword’ having, shamefully, never having previously read any of his Father Brown cases), there isn’t a single one you could skip through and not miss it – which is quite some feat. Unlike with the British Library books, there are no short profiles of each author here which, although I do find those interesting, I didn’t particularly miss. I would, however, have liked to have known when each tale was originally published, which seems like a simple thing to have been added. A cozy mystery set in 1920s England has just the right stuff to put you in a festive mood for the Christmas season.

Admittedly, that was the most surprising thing about this book! To clarify, what I mean is that it starts us off in what I would say is a relatively interest-less mystery, in that we don't really have a reason to care about the person who was murdered--and, quite frankly, no one else seems to either. The only reason that Eleanor even gets involved is because the murder actually happens on her property this time, and so she feels responsible for what happened right under her very nose.

Disclaimer

It is Christmas and Lady Eleanor is very generous with her staff which doesn’t seem to be the norm with others of her ilk. And that is just a sad fact of the times.