A Christmas Beginning

August 13, 2007
Mystery author Perry returns to holiday fare (after last year’s A Christmas Secret
) and sends rumpled London policeman Runcorn to a lonely Welsh island for Christmas, where he gets pulled into the case of the murder of Olivia Costain, the town vicar’s lively single sister. Runcorn employs his bare-knuckle investigative skills in interviewing Olivia’s family and her various suitors, to the chagrin of the local constable, Sir Alan Faraday, whose pursuit Olivia rejected. Runcorn’s modest, unflashy ways carry this moody, understated mystery.

October 1, 2007
Best-selling mystery author Perry continues her yearly Christmas offering (e.g., "A Christmas Secret"), this time featuring a character from her William Monk series, Superintendent Runcorn. Investigating the murder of a young woman, Runcorn finds himself distracted by the unlikely attentions of a former love interest. Unlike some of her previous Christmas tales, readers unfamiliar with Perry's mystery series may not be as drawn in. For all mystery collections.

Copyright 2007 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2007
Superintendent Runcorn, the former boss of William Monk, star of one of Perrys several crime series, is spending the Christmas season on the remote Isle of Anglesey, off the coast of Wales. When sleuths vacation in remote locales, murder invariably finds them. This time its an independent young woman, Olivia Costain, who is the victim of a brutal attack. Olivia, whose dreams extend well beyond her island home and the circumscribed lives common for Victorian-era women, has refused to settle down, spurning several suitable men and exasperating her brother, the local vicar. Could one of the suitors have killed her? Because of Runcorns experience as a London police officer, the local constable asks for his help. Runcorn agrees and continues his investigation even after the chief constable arrives to take control. This leisurely paced murder features a perceptive look at class differences in Victorian England and an engagingly introspective hero forced to take stock of himself and the safe choices he has made in his life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)