Murder on Mistletoe Lane (A Stella and Lyndy Mystery)
The fifth book in McKenna’s Stella and Lyndy Mysteries series, the Christmas-centric Murder on Mistletoe Lane opens on a freezing winter night in December 1905, with an impoverished widow and her two small children approaching a manor house with a brown paper-wrapped bribe. We are not provided with the context for this scene until much later. Instead, the focus swiftly shifts to the Lyndhurst household preparing for the upcoming Christmas festivities. Mince pies and Stella’s jewelry vanish from their respective places, leading the housekeeper, Mrs. Nelson, to suspect a thief lurks among the staff. She fires a maid, Louisa Bright, after discovering some of the missing morsels in the girl’s room. Not long after, Mrs. Nelson falls ill, only to be found dead and bloodied in the snow not far from Stella’s beloved stables.
Initially, the story unfolds slowly, setting up the mystery with a series of tantalizing incidents amidst the usual Yuletide preparations. Stella finds a love note written in a hand quite unlike her beloved husband’s. She overhears snippets of a sinister-seeming conversation between the cook and a blood-stained stranger. This initially languid pacing may bother readers seeking a more formulaic “body on the first page” whodunnit, although I, for one, found it refreshing. The plot quickens and thickens after the death of Mrs. Nelson. We soon realize that the question of who killed Mrs. Nelson isn’t the only mystery haunting the Lyndhursts’ country house. These mysteries kept me guessing until the well-played reveals.
The detail and care with which McKenna portrays the goings-on of the turn-of-the-century household should certainly delight historical fiction aficionados. The cultural differences between the spirited, horse-loving American “dollar princess” Stella and her traditionally English mother-in-law, Lady Atherly, lends itself well to drama whilst also fitting the period setting. I also liked the sexy romance between Stella and Lyndy.
