Sunday, October 13, 2013

Eleven Pipers Piping

Father Tom Christmas is attending a Robbie Burns meal in a hotel during a snowstorm in the village of Thornford with eleven others.  They are joined, unexpectedly, by a woman hoping to get a room before the full force of the storm hits.  All of the guests are shocked when the host, Will Moir,  is found dead after the meal.  No help is available due to the snow.

A post mortem indicates that Will was poisoned.  The poison was taxine, a product of the yew berry.  Could the tartlets sent to the Burns meal by Christmas' housekeeper been the cause?

Later Father Christmas learns that Will had taken out a new life insurance policy on himself.  Did he know that death was imminent?  Another question arises as a result of the inquest; could the poison have possibly been meant for someone else?

Things take a tragic turn at the Wassail ceremony, when a woman standing beside Father Christmas is shot and killed.  How is her death linked to the first? Or is it? 

Author C. C. Benison offers up a number of possible suspects throughout this murder mystery before presenting the real culprit, which at no time did this reader suspect.  A good read.

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