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The Midnight Before
Christmas Megan McGee is a young lawyer who plans to spend Christmas with her bulldog. Her plans are disrupted when Bonnie Cantrell comes to her, seeking some sort of protection from her former husband, Carl. He is an ex-cop, prone to violence, who has threatened to kill their son. On Christmas Eve he goes to the house hoping to see his son, whom he loves, but instead beats up Bonnie’s new gentleman friend. This is done in sight of the neighbors, so there are plenty of witnesses. Carl picks up his son from school and intends to spend time with him. His wife, however, is angry that the skeleton staff at the school has released the child to his father, and she and Megan drive off in search of them. In a further development, Megan calls Carl as he’s drinking in what was one of his favorite bars, and asks him to come to the house. She apologizes for her previous actions, unfortunately for Carl, this is a trap he shouldn’t fall into. Even though this is subtitled, A Holiday Thriller, it’s still a Christmas story, and there’s a happy ending. Instead of the loneliness they’d anticipated, two lonely people wind up with a companion for the warmest holiday of the year.
The Christmas Guest Mariah Ellison, the grandmother from the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt historical detective stories, is a widow who has been living with her daughter Emily. Mariah, who is called Grandmamma, is a waspish old lady who is accustomed to ruling the roost. At Christmas, Emily and her husband are invited to spend Christmas in France. Mariah is upset to learn that she would need to cross the English Channel in winter, but even more so when she hears that she has not been invited. Instead, arrangements have already been made for her to spend the season with her daughter Caroline in a remote hamlet. Early in her stay, grandmamma continues her usual querulous attitudes, critical of everyone who has tried to make her comfortable. However, she is shocked to learn that a newcomer will be added to the list of holiday visitors: Maude Barrington, who lived for many years in the Middle East. At the time of this book, unmarried women did not go off to live in exotic places, although there were some notable exceptions. Maude is an enthusiastic person who finds beauty wherever she goes and especially in the cold, damp marsh of the area. Grandmamma is unaccustomed to the idea that any English lady could be so outrageously enthusiastic; this was in a day when ladies weren’t supposed to laugh out loud in public. However, in the few days the two ladies are together, Grandmamma grows to appreciate this exotic visitor very much. Although Maude intended to visit her sister and brother-in-law at their home, she was asked to stay with Caroline. To be truthful, Maude’s sister is expecting a very important personage who will offer her husband a peerage. Maude’s enthusiastic personality will embarrass the family and cause the offer of the peerage to be withdrawn. At dinner Maude talks about exotic places she’s visited such as Samarkand and Isfahan, and shares macadamia nuts, given to her by her sister. Grandmamma refuses to eat any of them because they cause indigestion. Maude is unconcerned because her sister has also given her a small bottle of peppermint water which will counter indigestion. The next day Maude doesn’t come for breakfast. Grandmamma investigates and discovers that Maude has died in the night. In the days before telephones, the only decent way for people of quality to give bad news was in person. Because Grandmamma has developed a fondness for Maude, she volunteers to give the bad news to Maude’s family. This will involve an overnight stay for Grandmamma. When she arrives, Grandmamma learns that that Maude has not always been cherished by some members of the family. Some people disparage her, but Grandmamma hears a very different report from villagers. Grandmamma decides that she can discover if there was foul play or not and catch the murderer. Grandmamma is an astute old lady, and her powers of observation and persuasion help uncover the murderer. But the biggest thing is the change in Grandmamma. From the female curmudgeon she was at the beginning of the story, she changes into a warm person, appreciative of others who serve her and even love her. This is the third of Anne Perry’s Christmas novels which use relatively minor characters from her historical series. In each of these stories, Anne Perry demonstrates some virtue which is typical of Christianity and emphasized by the birth of Jesus.
ninetyandnine.com © 2005, David Agriesti ------ David Agriesti spends his time reading when standing in line at the bank, the grocery store, the doctor's waiting room and everywhere else. He does this in Columbus, Ohio, where there are plenty of lines. |
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