The Christmas details are light, memorably centering on Catchpool decorating multiple trees while simultaneously interviewing suspects, but the case is heavy and offers much to consider. Fans will devour this novel, but it is also a nice place to jump into Hannah’s series.
Fans of the series will enjoy the camaraderie and supportiveness between Tish and recurring characters, as well as the delicious menu cooked up for the upcoming holiday and Tish’s new café.
Lukasik blends all the elements needed for a dark suspense novel: a forbidding mansion, ghostly presences, secret passages, a hostile housekeeper, a temperamental employer, and residents unwilling to talk to outsiders. For fans of Rebecca, The Woman in White, and The Death of Mrs. Westaway.
The fifth “Roaring Twenties Mystery,” following Murder in Disguise, is an enjoyable treat with appearances by Pickford, Fairbanks, and Queen Marie of Romania, as well as the Astaires. For fans of earlier books in the series or of Katharine Schellman’s “Nightingale” mysteries, also set in 1920s NYC.