Comments on: Making a List — CHRISTMAS MYSTERIES, by Caryn Wesner-Early.

By: Benzadmiral

Benzadmiral — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:04:58 +0000

I suggest taking Ellery Queen’s “Egyptian Cross Mystery” off. Only the very first couple of pages are set during Christmas week; the rest occurs much later in the next year, so it’s hardly a Christmas story. However, if you’re not dealing only with novels, EQ’s short “The Dauphin’s Doll,” from the “Calendar of Crime” collection, *is* set at Christmastime.

By: David Vineyard

David Vineyard — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 20:15:23 +0000

It strikes me we ought to at least volunteer the best Christmas mystery.

For best Christmas Mystery Novel I pick Ellery Queen’s The Finishing Stroke with Nicholas Blake’s The Corpse in the Snowman runner up (and a close one)

Best short “The Adventure of the Blue Carbunkle” runner up Georges Simenon’s “Maigret’s Christmas”

Best Thriller: Ian Fleming’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service runner up Patrick Ruell’s (Reginald Hill) Red Christmas

And memory may be playing me false but doesn’t one of Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe books take place at Christmas? Can’t get to my copies right now, and I may be getting it mixed up with six other books, but it seems right.

And for best Christmas story ever — other than the obvious and original — of course Dickens A Christmas Carol, Seabury Quinn’s Roads, and Arthur C. Clarke’s “Star of Bethlehem”.

By: Curt

Curt — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 06:11:39 +0000

John Rhode’s Death Pays a Dividend is set at Christmas and makes some use of the theme. So is his dead Men at the Folly.

By: Caryn Wesner-Early

Caryn Wesner-Early — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:43:09 +0000

Steve, it was great to hear from you, and to know that you had re-posted this. I stopped keeping the list a year or two after this was published, because these days, a new crop of Christmas mysteries comes out every year. Hard to believe it used to be difficult to find them!

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 00:42:33 +0000

Yes, short stories are certainly fair game, but if “Blue Carbuncle” isn’t contained in a half dozen of more of the anthologies already listed, I’d be awfully surprised. It’s a classic.

By: David Vineyard

David Vineyard — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:54:03 +0000

If you are going to mention any shorts at all, I suppose you have to include “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.”

Also, though a film and not a book, the French murder mystery musical Eight Women takes place at an isolated Christmas gathering.

And though the books never mention it, both the first film of Mickey Spillane’s I, The Jury and Raymond Chandler’s Lady in the Lake are set at Christmas. And I suppose at a stretch you would have to call The Lemon Drop Kid and Lady for a Day (and it’s remake Pocketful of Miracles) crime related both films and Damon Runyon stories set at Christmas.

And one last one Jerusalem Inn by Martha Grimes.