Murder After Christmas

August 8, 2022
First published in 1944, this entry in the British Library Crime Classics series from the virtually forgotten Latimer (1905–1953) offers some festive Christmas trimmings, if little else. Frank and Rhoda Redpath have decided to invite Rhoda’s stepfather, Sir Willoughby Keene-Cotton (aka Uncle Willie), to spend Christmas at their country house, because Mussolini’s decision “to take sides in the current European unpleasantness” has made it impossible for the old gentleman to occupy his villa in San Remo. Having such a “scandalously wealthy” houseguest makes the Redpaths popular indeed during the holiday season, with neighbors and distant relatives showing up en masse for their Christmas party. Shortly after Father Christmas, played by Uncle Willie, delivers his gifts for the guests, his body is found on the lawn, lying near a capsized snowman. Superintendent Cully’s investigation into the death is hampered by the compulsive need of everyone concerned to lie to the police. The book overflows with too many running gags (one regarding mince pies) and too many suspects, motives, and secrets—both old and new. This creaky old chestnut is no classic.

Starred review from August 15, 2022
This pseudonymous novel from 1944, one of the most obscure entries in the British Library Crime Classics, is also one of the most rewarding. Wartime needs have turned Sir Willoughby Keene-Cotton out of his hotel, and Rhoda Redpath, his stepdaughter by his late wife, thinks it's too dangerous for him to join his ailing current wife, Lady Josephine, in London. So she talks her husband, Frank, into inviting him to their country home, Four Corners, for the holiday; Frank's aunt, Paulina Redpath, has already come to live with them, and they invite lots of other people to round out the party. Rhoda and Frank's son, John, and his intended, Margery Dore, will stay for the duration along with Josephine's daughter, Angelina, and her husband, Puffy Freer; the neighboring Crosbies and Coultards will stop by for a party featuring not one but two Father Christmases. His exorbitant wealth, complicated family relations, ambiguous will, and habit of confusing his wives with each other make it obvious from the get-go that Uncle Willie, as Rhoda calls him, will be murdered, but that's about all that will be obvious. Even after Willie's old friend Maj. Smythe, now Chief Constable of Blandshire, and Superintendent Culley establish that he's been fed a lethal dose of laudanum, there are riddles upon riddles about how it got into him (medicine? chocolates? mince pies?) and how his body came to end up outdoors next to a ruined snowman. Latimer, a pen name for Algernon Victor Mills (1905-1953), supplies cheerfully calculating relatives, decorously brutal dialogue, and a fiendishly intricate set of Chinese boxes before the surprising reveal. No, they don't make them like this anymore--so golden-age fans should welcome this rediscovery with open arms.

COPYRIGHT(2022) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.