Amy Myers is known for her short stories and historical novels featuring Victorian chef Auguste Didier and chimney sweep Tom Wasp. Her contemporary series feature ex-cop Peter Marsh and Daughter and classic car detective Jack Colby, and she is currently working on a new series starring Cara Shelley who runs a café in the grounds of stately home Tanton Towers.
Website: www.amymyers.net
Rebus and Lawrence Block meet Sir John Appleby and Father Brown in this anthology of festive short stories tuned for undemanding Christmas reading.
This seasonal collection comprises ten stories by prominent contemporary, as well as past authors held together splendidly, with well-known seasonal themes, such as footprints in the snow (among other winter conventions).
First to welcome the reader is Ellis Peters’ tale of the Holy Trinity cat, but if cats aren’t your thing, fear not. Julian Symons and Michael Innes are hard on her heels with tales of comfort in their own inimitable styles. And if comfort isn’t your style, Ian Rankin provides a touch of reality in ‘No Sanity Clause’. John Dickson Carr’s Colonel March is balanced nicely with Val McDermid’s ‘A Wife in a Million’ before we are thrust back into the days of Father Brown and Marjorie Bowen. But don’t get lost in the past – Lawrence Block is waiting to greet you back in today’s world with ‘As Dark as Christmas Gets’. And who completes the cast? Margery Allingham of course with the inimitable Mr Campion.
Looking forward to Christmas? This anthology is a fine way to start it.
It’s a cracker.
