Books › Envious Casca
Envious Casca
496 pages
A sparkling, locked-room holiday puzzle where the deadliest thing isn't the murder weapon, but the family's acid-tongued banter.
What it feels like
Reading this classic mystery feels like being trapped in a snowbound English manor with the most delightfully dreadful people imaginable. The experience is less about pulse-pounding thrills and more about the sheer joy of a meticulously crafted puzzle wrapped in a biting comedy of manners. The narrative unfolds at a steady, deliberate pace, driven by sparkling, dialogue-heavy prose that drips with dry British wit and satirical observations of family dysfunction. The mood is a perfect blend of cozy holiday aesthetics and claustrophobic tension, as every polite exchange masks hidden resentments and secret motives. It is an absolute treat for readers who crave the intellectual satisfaction of a locked-room conundrum, populated by a theatrical cast of suspects whose sharp tongues are just as dangerous as their hidden daggers.
- Mood
- cozy
- claustrophobic
- frosty
- suspenseful
- Tone
- wry
- satirical
- witty
- theatrical
- observant
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- family dysfunction · the facade of politeness · greed and inheritance · intellectual puzzle-solving
- The writing
- Elegant and dialogue-heavy, sparkling with dry British wit and sharp, satirical character observations.
- The arc
- Moves from the amused anticipation of domestic friction to the satisfying intellectual tension of unraveling a seemingly impossible crime.
- Who it's for
- Devotees of Golden Age mysteries who love a locked-room puzzle wrapped in a biting comedy of manners.
Content notes
- murder
- family toxicity
About the book
Inspectors Hannasyde & Hemingway #6
'Tis the season--to be dead...
Resigned to spending Christmas at Lexham Manor, Mathilda Clare wasn't sure what she dreaded most--the foul temper of Nat Herriard, the filthy-rich old Scrooge who owned the place, or the sweetness-and-light of his brother, Joseph. Joseph had concocted a guest list brilliantly headed for mayhem... acid-tongued young Stephen, his sly sister Paula, and Nat's sharp-dealing partner, with a finger in some strange pies. "There'll be murder before we're through," Mathilda laughed. And she was absolutely right.
But it is no ordinary Christmas, when the holiday party takes on a sinister aspect when the colorful assortment of guests discovers there is a killer in their midst. The owner of the substantial estate, that old Scrooge Nathaniel Herriard, is found stabbed in the back, and the six holiday guests find themselves the suspects of a murder enquiry. For Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard, 'tis the season to find whodunit.
Whilst the delicate matter of inheritance could be the key to this crime, the real conundrum is how any of the suspects could have entered the locked room to commit this foul deed. The investigation is complicated by the fact that every guest is hiding something--throwing all of their testimony into question and casting suspicion far and wide. The clever and daring crime will mystify readers, yet the answer is in plain sight all along....
Description from Open Library.
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