I loved Mrs Bradley and her family, but didn't manage to maintain an interest in the mystery. For all Mrs Bradley straight-laced attitude and witty snark, the story was a typical Mitchell construction - it lost momentum after the first third and only perked up occasionally from there on until the end.

An English Christmas has mince pies, cheerful carols, a twinkling tree… and a murder? Thank goodness Lady Swift is on the scene! If there’s one thing better than a murder at Christmastime, it’s a slightly spooky murder at Christmastime, and editor Cecily Gayford has made sure to include a couple of fine examples of such works in Murder in the Falling Snow. For instance, in The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel by LT Meade and Robert Eustace, private detective John Bell is engaged by the chairman of the Lytton Vale Railway Company in Wales to investigate the mysterious death of a signalman who was killed while on duty at the mouth of Felwyn Tunnel. Given the strange circumstances of the man’s death and the tunnel’s reputation for being haunted, there’s a fear that an apparition may have caused his death. I had fun with this book. Published in 1950, it nicely captures a sense of an England in transition, where the role of the gentry is changing and men of all classes have returned from the war with different expectations of themselves and each other. Mrs Bradley goes to stay with her nephew, who has just bought a portion of a country estate sold off by a Peer of the Realm. He owns the manor house and a few farms and woods. The rest is owned by the State and is being used a (new at the time) Teacher Training College. I was fascinated by the wealth and privilege that Mrs Bradley's nephew took for granted, while at the same time trying to get the locals NOT to refer to him as "Your Lordship" - a title he doesn't hold. Other famous folk popping up here include Dorothy L Sayers, Julian Symons, Arthur Conan Doyle (yes, it’s a Holmes and Watson story, ‘The Adventure of the Abbey Grange’) and GK Chesterton.Edited by Cecily Gayford — Murder in the Falling Snow brings you ten festive stories of murder and mayhem by some of the early-20th century’s best crime writers. From country houses to trainlines, rustic pubs to suburban terraces, the stories feature perplexing mysteries solved by canny detectives in environments now synonymous with classic crime fiction. While some of the included tales have been reprinted in recent years in various of the British Library’s Crime Classics anthologies, others have long been out of print, which makes their appearance in this collection a real treat for fans of stories from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction. A cozy mystery set in 1920s England has just the right stuff to put you in a festive mood for the Christmas season. Ellie’s character just keeps getting better and better. She’s strong, intelligent, helpful, down to earth and with a clever sense of humor. Now she’s more mature than when we first met her but without losing an ounce of charm. Her relationship with Clifford is one of love and mutual respect and they make a formidable team, both in and out of the investigation. It was nice to see how the other members of the household had a more important role in the story and I loved the little glimpse into her uncle’s past and how it linked with the current investigation. It probably will be,’ said the Chief Constable, who, beneath a curmudgeonly manner, cherished an affection for Mrs Bradley’s gifts and was rather put out of countenance at what seemed to be her negative results in this particular case.

Born in Cowley, Oxford, in 1901, Gladys Maude Winifred Mitchell was the daughter of market gardener James Mitchell, and his wife, Annie. She taught English, history and games at St Paul's School, Brentford, from 1921-26, and at St Anne's Senior Girls School, Ealing until 1939.There is much to like about Murder in the Snow (originally published as Groaning Spinney), most of all I loved the scene setting: Mrs Bradley visits her nephew and his new wife for the Christmas holidays in the Cotswolds and just as they settle in, the snow begins to fall. And keeps on falling, cutting off the village community from the outside world. As the snowfall stops and roads begin to clear, a body is discovered. I love this series! It's fun, it's light, it's easy-reading and it never fails to charm and entertain me. A go-to for when I just want to enjoy myself.

I thoroughly enjoyed Murder in the Snow which is a fun read with a good mystery attached, i.e. I had no idea of the perpetrator’s identity. This is the first novel in the series that I have read but it won’t be the last. I loved that it is told entirely from Lady Eleanor’s point of view as it means that there are no distractions and the reader knows what she knows, nothing more and nothing less. There are plenty of suspects as Canning was not a nice man and plenty of motives as he’s a man with a past. The solution comes out of left field although the clues are maybe there if the reader looks hard enough. PDF / EPUB File Name: Murder_in_the_Falling_Snow_Ten_Stories_-_Dorothy_L_Sayers.pdf, Murder_in_the_Falling_Snow_Ten_Stories_-_Dorothy_L_Sayers.epub If that that bears all things bears thee,’ quoted Mrs Bradley in solemn and sonorous Greek, ‘bear thou and be borne.’ Oh the sheer joy of escaping these dark, Groundhog Day times in the company of these wonderful characters (especially Eleanor) and of course Gladstone the bulldog, who frankly steals the show ... and baubles.... and slippers .....! They all feel so vibrantly alive, they’re colourful and the storytelling is lively and entertaining. The period of time is captured well in these above and below stairs times (not that Eleanor places much store in that) and the language used is spot on, what! Oh it certainly is my old fruit. This is very much in the spirit of the mysteries of the era as the great teamwork of the intuition of Lady Eleanor and the knowledge of Clifford solves a twisty mystery. It’s only the afternoon, but dusk is already falling and a log fire burning in the grate. Outside, frost coats the tree branches and snow sparkles on the ground. And somewhere in the darkness, a murderer is making plans …Here are ten classic crime stories for the winter months, from the greatest minds of the mystery genre. So bundle up, grab a glass of mulled wine, and get ready to be puzzled, astonished and entertained by these festive stories of murder and mayhem. Murder in the Falling Snow: Ten Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers – eBook DetailsThis is such a fun read with great characters, plenty of suspects to confuse you, red herrings to distract you and a touch of romance to sweeten it all. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys Agatha Christie and Vivian Conroy mysteries also set in this era. At Christmas I like to read a good murder mystery, particularly if it has a Christmas theme - I'd not come across Gladys Mitchell before, but I was encouraged by a quote from a Guardian review, likening it to Miss Marple. And the Cotswold setting was attractive, as it's just up the road from where I live. Mrs Bradley is presented as an energetic, almost manic woman, with preternatural powers of observation, an appetite for the hunt and deep insight into people without the impediment of empathy. For his part, the deceptively astute Father Brown teams up with gentleman thief Flambeau and attempts to unravel the truth behind the death of General Sir Arthur St Clare in GK Chesterton’s The Sign of the Broken Sword. While the fact that the general met his death in Brazil during his regiment’s infamous last stand against the forces of President Olivier is well known, Father Brown suspects there was something more to it. The motivation behind his decision to dig up the past is never really made clear, but his wordy recitation of the gathered evidence to Flambeau allows a sense to dread and intrigue to build throughout what is otherwise a fairly passive investigation.

Eleanor inherited her title following the tragic death of her uncle and the disappearance of her parents. She’s spent her years on adventures around the world and hasn’t been brought up to be Lady of the manor but she’s endeavouring to fulfil the role with the guidance and protection of Clifford. This isn’t the first time this pair have investigated a murder but they’d certainly never expected one to be committed during the first Christmas Eve party hosted by Eleanor for the local villagers. The police don’t seem to be too interested in what happened though Detective Seldon isn’t totally ruling out foul play. However, the victim doesn’t seem to have anyone who’ll miss him but just who killed him – and why? As more people are poisoned and incriminating evidence planted, can this duo identify the killer and bring them to justice? A similarly chance encounter proves equally fateful in Julian Symons’ Meeting in the Snow, where Francis Quarles offers a lift to a hitchhiker on a particularly miserable winter afternoon and ends up embroiled in a murder mystery. The hitchhiker turns out to be the nephew of Quarles’ old friend John Landon and, when Quarles agrees to accompany his passenger to Landon’s home, the stately Clinton House, the two discover that Landon has been murdered sometime earlier that day. Unfortunately for the murderer, Quarles sees to the heart of the matter before the police even arrive on the scene, which provides an archetypal illustration of the gentleman detective at work. But this is not the only disturbance: a woman goes missing, and some poison letters make their rounds through the village. Yeah, it had a lot of similarities with Christie's The Moving Finger (published nearly ten years earlier): Lady Swift is wonderful. She's smart and spunky, kind and determined, and I love that she is also independant. She gets herself into trouble, but she very often also gets herself OUT of trouble too. The fact that she's a strong woman who can take care of herself is a big draw for me.

The murder and the plot that spins from it was quite interesting, with lots of unexpected but plausible connections that held my interest while making it impossible for me to solve the whodunnit riddle. Thank you to NetGalley for a free advanced review copy of this book. All opinions expressed in the review are entirely my own and not affected by the giveaway. Those eyes could melt a nun trapped in a glacier… I just meant that I can see why Canning did so well with the ladies, if all the stories are true. Not my type, but I can imagine in his day, Canning was quite the fox women would have howled at the moon over. Another entry in the entertaining Lady Eleanor Swift series. Ellie was a worldwide adventuress and traveler before inheriting her uncle's estate and settling down in the British countryside. She doesn't much conform to society's idea of a Lady, but she is smart and good-hearted and determined and she is easy to like. Assisted by her late uncle's servant/friend Clifford, she keeps getting embroiled in mysterious murders. In a similar vein, the opening story in the collection, Gladys Mitchell’s Haunted House, sees John and Morag Graham host a Christmas party for a small group of friends at their new, isolated and very possibly haunted house. The party is not a success. What’s worse, a heavy snowstorm means that the last remaining guest – a man rumoured to be having an affair with Morag – is forced to stay at the Grahams’ house. Ghostly footsteps are heard overnight and, come the morning, Morag doesn’t wake up. Is it the ghost or one of the two men who is responsible for her untimely demise? Of course, while both of these stories have a supernatural aspect, it’s the people involved that the detectives have to pay attention to as they attempt to unravel the fiendish truth behind the crimes.