Book Review : The Christmas Party by Georgette Heyer

This is a wonderful book and extremely well written.

Almost all the characters attending the party at Lexham Manor are vile, obnoxious, and bicker with each other all the time especially the members of the Herriard family. All the characters are annoying in some way, for example the character Maud is always referring to a book called Life of the Empress Elizabeth and reading out excerpts from it. Soon, the book disappears.

This is a locked room mystery where Nathaniel Herriard is found stabbed to death inside his locked study and no one can work out how it was done. I was hoping that this would turn out to be a plot similar to “And then there were none”, but unfortunately not.

The brother and sister Stephen and Paula Herriard are argumentative and insensitive all the time as well as being callous and rude to everyone else. Credit to the writer for this, of course.

Eventually, the significance of the book Life of the Empress Elizabeth is revealed and this helps Inspector Hemingway work out how the murder was committed and who did it.

This book is recommended.