Francis Duncan, Murder for Christmas

Francis Duncan, Murder for Christmas
Originally published in 1949 by John Long, Ltd.
Re-published by Vintage Books/Penguin, 2015
This edition, Sourcebooks Landmark, 2017
© Francis Duncan 2017
ISBN 1-13-987-4926-5170-3

Duncan (which was a pseudonym adopted by William Underhill) was a moderately successful writer of mysteries from 1936 until at least the mid-1950s.  This one is a fairly standard English country house murder, in which an assortment of people, with ties only to their host (Benedict Grame), come together to celebrate Christmas.  Grame has this sort of a Christmas celebration annually, and some (not all) of the guests are regulars.  On Christmas Eve, Grame places presents for each guest on or under the tree.  But this year, one of his guests is shot, near the tree, dressed as Santa Claus, late on Christmas Eve.

And, this year, Mordecai Tremaine (who has some notoriety as an amateur detective) is, for the first time, one of the guests.  And Grame’s confidential secretary, Nicholas Blaise, has appended a personal note to Tremaine’s invitation: 

Please pay us a visit if you can possibly manage it.  Benedict will be more than ordinarily grateful.  As a matter of fact, I’ve been feeling that there’s something here to interest you.  Benedict doesn’t say much—in fact, he doesn’t know I’m making this comment, so I’d be glad if you’d keep it confidential.  But I can tell there’s something wrong, and frankly I’m getting scared.

The guests include a Member of Parliament, a famous scientist, a young woman whose guardian refuses to let her marry the young man she loves (who is also there), Grame’s sister, and assorted others.

It’s fair to say, I think, that the pace of the story is leisurely, extending over 345 pages that take us from Christmas Eve to a day or two after Christmas.  If the time is covered in great detail, the story does not seem to drag (although the passages allotted to Tremaine’s state of mind probably are a bit extensive).  The tale proceeds as, essentially, a series of relatively amicable conversations between Tremaine and the other characters, during which we learn a lot about them, some of which provide hints as to the outcome.  And while the denouement is well-handled, I doubt that many readers of mysteries will be shocked by it.  This is a pleasant way to spend a few hours, and worthwhile for that.  (It might be more fun to read around Christmas than during a heat wave, too.)