Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen by Vicki Delany 

 

 

Overview:

 

In Rudolph, New York, it’s Christmastime all year long. But this December, while the snow-lined streets seem merry and bright, a murder is about to ruin everyone’s holiday cheer…
As the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That’s why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoe-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry’s float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there’s a Scrooge in Christmas Town.
Merry isn’t ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph’s Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter’s body on a late night dog walk—and police suspect he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky—Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who’s really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa’s naughty list…

 

My Review:

 

This is the first book in a new series by Vicki Delany.  It takes place in the fictional town of Rudolph, NY where Christmas is celebrated year-round and I found this to be a unique setting and a fun premise.  The author does a good job in describing the town in way that makes it feel like a real place and one you would want to go hang out in for a while.

We follow the main character Merry as she tries to solve a murder which has been pinned on her best friend Vicky.  Since this is the first book in the series, we are introduced to the main cast of characters as Merry does her investigation.  I thought that they came across more as caricatures rather than actual people.  Her parents – father is Santa and mother is a former opera diva – are so over the top it’s hard to take them seriously.  The rest of the cast is merely glossed over and we don’t really learn a whole lot about them, making it hard to like or connect with them.  The most interesting character in the whole book is Matterhorn (Mattie) the Saint Bernard puppy who spends the entire book getting shoved in his crate for hours on end.  This really galls me.  Merry makes it clear she did not have time for a puppy but got talked into adopting Mattie anyway.  If she knew she didn’t have time, either don’t adopt the puppy or hire someone to walk him a few times a day.

Another character that I had a hard time with is Jackie, the part-time associate who works for Merry.  As a former retail manager, I can tell you that if I had an employee who acted the way Jackie does and talked to me the way she does to Merry, she would be fired on the spot for insubordination. It goes back to the characters being unrealistic and hard to like.

That being said, I thought the story was engaging and while I figured out the culprit fairly early on, I wasn’t disappointed in the ending.

Overall, I think it has potential to be a good series if there is character development going forward.  I have the second installment and am anxious to dive in and see where it goes.

Have you read this series?  If so, let me know in the comments what you thought.

Thanks for joining me today!