A Christmas Carol Murder (A Dickens of a Crime)
This is the third book in the A Dickens of a Crime mystery series. It is 1835, and a young Charles Dickens is working as a journalist for a paper belonging to his fiancée’s father. While covering a devastating fire, he is approached by a young girl who says her sister is dead, and that Dickens is the father of her sister’s baby. She hands him the baby and departs, leaving him to try and find the real father. He also decides to hide this shocking turn of events from his fiancée, Catherine “Kate” Hogarth. At the same time, a death has occurred at the house of the miserly Mr. Screws. His partner, Mr. Harley, has plummeted from a window, chained at the neck. Was he murdered, or was this a suicide?
A Dickens of a Crime is a fascinating cozy mystery series that takes events and characters from the novels of Charles Dickens and uses them differently. While this is the third book, it can be read as a standalone novel. In this third installment, A Christmas Carol is retold as a murder mystery. The reader will take delight in finding the many references to the classic Christmas novella, re-imagined, and with names slightly changed. The mysteries are well-thought-out, and there are plenty of twists and turns. What I enjoyed most was the fact that the characters created by Dickens interacted with Dickens himself, and with people from his actual life. It becomes a fusion of both mystery and biography of the early life of this great writer. Recommended for fans of murder mysteries, classic literature, and Charles Dickens.
