The Mistletoe Murder (and other stories) - P.D. James

Rating: ✫✫✫✫

The Mistletoe Murder and other stories is a collection of four short stories by crime writer P.D. James. These stories are:

• The Mistletoe Murder
• A Very Commonplace Murder
• The Boxdale Inheritance
• The Twelve Clues of Christmas

I'm not normally a massive fan of short stories, as I find there isn't room for the story to develop properly, but I really enjoyed this collection. P.D. James herself states in the preface to the collection that writing novels and writing short stories are entirely different disciplines, as there isn't place for long descriptions of characters or scenery.

"There is no space for long and detailed descriptions of place, but the setting must still come alive for the reader."

P.D. James worked for the police and criminal policy department, so it isn't surprising that these stories were very carefully written. I also really do feel that the detail included was very impressive, and more than one of the stories had the feel of a longer novel to them. Yet the style of writing was still gentle, which is common in short stories, and which makes them very easy to read. I did find it quite hard to flit between the different stories, but that's not a criticism of the collection; that's more a reflection of my own personal opinion on short stories.

Personally, I enjoyed The Boxdale Inheritance the most. The Mistletoe Murder, A Very Commonplace Murder and The Twelve Clues of Christmas were still both great stories, but I enjoyed the feel of the other two more. In order to really look at this collection as a whole, I will briefly study each story individually before coming to a verdict on the whole collection at the very end.

*spoiler alert*

Story 1: The Mistletoe Murder

The Mistletoe Murder looks back in time, following the memories of a woman who says she was once involved in a murder mystery, and who chooses to reveal the truth for the first time. We watch as she pays a Christmas visit to family she had become estranged from, and as a murder investigation gets underway.

This story had so many elements of really good crime fiction; a beautiful and well described setting, interesting characters, and an interesting premise. The idea was that we were looking back in time on a crime that had happened a long time ago, and were going to hear the truth about what really happened for the first time. It also helped that there was the introduction of a family secret right at the beginning. This created enough intrigue to carry through the rest of the story.

“I had a vague childhood memory of some disreputable secret, whispered about but never explained.”

And so we meet this mysterious family. There are three family members that we meet during the visit: the grandmother, who extended the invitation to visit; the cousin Paul, who spends a lot of time at the forefront of the story; and Rowland Maybrick, a distant relative who is altogether rather creepy.

Maybrick makes for an interesting character – originally implied to be a bit shady, we later hear from our main character that he is:

“a superb dancer”

There is a noticeable change as the pages progress, which made me even more surprised when he became the victim, murdered by a brutal blow to the head. I really did expect the grandmother to die. However, on finishing the story, I could see why this hadn’t been the case.

The building of the alibi was, for me, the cleverest part of this story. As we find out at the end, our narrator was summoned over Christmas not just for a family visit, but to provide an alibi for the murderer. When she kisses the forehead of her grandmother, she says this gesture was a mistake. Why? 

“On impulse I bent down and kissed her forehead. It was moist under my lips. The gesture was a mistake. Whatever it was she wanted from me, it wasn’t affection.”

I was very surprised by this comment, but it starts to make sense as the story progresses. It wasn’t affection she wanted, but an alibi. The realisation that this was the main purpose of her invitation grows as the events of the investigation continue. It is only when she is questioned that she sees the truth:

“It was only then that I realised that I had spent almost every minute of [Christmas Day] in the company of my cousin.”

At first she thinks nothing of it, but the more she considers this fact, she wonders if this was done by design. The discovery that the coins that Maybrick was to sell were also a ploy arouses even more suspicion, and she finds it necessary to confront her cousin Paul.

I thought the way we were fed the idea of this alibi being manufactured was very clever. The idea was hinted at, and then the idea grew and grew until it became very obvious that it was true. It created enough subtle intrigue to keep the reader invested in the story, and made it more than just any other murder mystery. I really feel that little details and tricks like this are the key to making short stories enjoyable. They cannot be just any old story, as this makes them boring and forgettable. As the paragraphs went on, we became more and more convinced that this alibi was fake, and I think this was a huge part of why I maintained such an interest in what the conclusion was to be.

The ending is also very different. We’re left wondering whether or not it was in fact the grandmother who committed the crime. Before this reveal, when we still believed Paul was the culprit, I had really disliked it when the narrator said she had never asked her cousin how he had committed the crime; it seemed to me that this was just a way of avoiding coming up with a clever explanation. Therefore, I thought this  final twist made the situation a lot better. If she had asked Paul how he had gotten away with it, we never could have had the dramatic final paragraph. However, I do still wonder how she would have been able to kill the victim with the force that was apparently required!

✼

Looking at the story as a whole, I did enjoy it – but I also thought it was fairly boring in places. It was only at the end that I changed my mind about it. I also thought it was very helpful that the main character goes over the steps of the murder and events of the day once again, after they had happened. The previous few pages had been a bit confusing, particularly with the long paragraphs of description. I’m not sure if this recap was added in for this particular reason, but I thought it was very helpful nonetheless! I wonder if I would have had to reread the story again to truly grasp what had happened if it had been omitted. I did, however, love the reference to the whole thing seeming a bit Agatha Christie!

“And it seems entirely appropriate that the body should have been discovered in the library, that most fatal room in popular British fiction.”

Having a story written largely in hindsight is a wonderful thing, if it is done effectively. I think this was one of those times. It had the right amount of drama, and the story was fast-paced enough for the longer and more tedious passages not to be too much of a problem. Hindsight also gives the opportunity for there to be huge developments in just a few pages. This is evident primarily in the narrator’s attitude towards the crime:

“Looking back it seems to me that I felt no particular revulsion at the deed and certainly no compulsion to confide in the police. It wasn’t just that I liked my cousin and had disliked Maybrick. I think the war had something to do with it. Good people were dying all over the world and the fact that one unlikeable one had been killed seemed somehow less important.

I know now that I was wrong. Murder should never be excused or condoned.”

A very Poirot-esque conclusion!

Story 2: A Very Commonplace Murder

Ernest Gabriel visits a flat that he hasn't been to in sixteen years; a flat in which a murder took place. A murder that he had valuable information about. Through his eyes, we watch the investigation unfold in his memories, until it comes to a very chilling conclusion...

I found this title to be the most interesting, as I was intrigued to see what would constitute a 'commonplace' murder. This intrigue was heightened when we found out, when Gabriel was looking through a window of the flat, that:

"It was from this window, sixteen years ago, that he had watched Denis Speller and Eileen Morrisey play out their commonplace little tragedy to its end."

If this isn't a great setup to a murder mystery, I don't know what is. I instantly became invested in the story, and was really interested to see how the rest of the plot would play out.

This was spoiled rather a lot by the fact that Gabriel is a very unappealing character. His habit of sneaking into the flat after hours and looking at pornography, spying on this couple, was really sordid. My dislike was intensified by his continuous refusal to tell the authorities what he knew - a detail that could help save an innocent man. 

"There was no sense in inviting such an ordeal before he was sure of the facts."

"Even if they did believe him, he wouldn't get any credit now for coming forward. He would be blamed for leaving it so late."

If I'm completely honest, I did have an inkling that there may have been more to Gabriel's story - and that did nothing but spur on my dislike for him. His obvious enjoyment from hearing about the investigation, when he knew the man on trial was innocent. It created such frustration - I was actually surprised by how frustrated I got.

As I've already said, I did have an idea that Gabriel may have been responsible for the murder, but that doesn't mean I wasn't surprised. The sheer brutality and lack of concern with which he killed Eileen Morrisey meant that I was still shocked when reading the truth. I suppose that's one way to keep your readers gripped!

I found myself concentrating more on this story then The Mistletoe Murder, because I enjoyed the set up of the plot so much, and I found it to be intriguing. Yet I also disliked it a lot more because of Gabriel's awful character. I suppose that's the nature of the story. I do wonder if I would have enjoyed the story more if the whole pornography thing was removed. I can see that there needed to be a reason for Gabriel to be in the flat regularly enough to get to know the two lovers, and it, quite frankly, set up his character accurately. Yet I wonder if I would have guessed the ending if he hadn't been so obviously sordid. Maybe I still would have, but I think it was an unnecessary detail. There could easily have been another believable reason for his character being in the flat so often. 

This being said, I think the story was altogether very good. It was also very different which was nice to see. It is interesting to note, however, that this is the second of two stories, both of which included crimes viewed through hindsight.

Story 3: The Boxdale Inheritance

Faced with a hefty inheritance coming his way, Canon Hubert Boxdale enlists the help of his godson, Chief Superintendent Adam Dalgliesh, to delve into a past case. Great Aunt Allie had once been accused of murder, and although she was acquitted, the real culprit had never been unveiled. 

Asked to find the truth after several decades, to see if the money was acquired through honourable means, Dalgliesh looks into the case, but what he finds is something very surprising.

Yet again, we have a story that looks to a past case. This isn't too much of a bother for me, as I happen to really like such stories. Great Aunt Allie also sounded like a very interesting character - disliked by everyone simply because she wasn't of the same class. I also liked the character of the Canon. He was a very likeable man. Uptight? Perhaps. But still immensely likeable.

"He was good. But he was not a fool."

What I really loved about this story was that it had all the elements of a good murder mystery. It was cosy, it had a very well established setting, and it had a larger number of characters who all could easily have been involved in the murder. It's incredibly hard to do this in a short story, and I don't think any other stories in this collection manage to reach the same quality of characters. The plot was also given a lot more depth by the inclusion of the backstory to the case. There was a great history that was laid out for the reader, and this really helped mould the story, making it much more gripping.

When the truth was revealed, I'll admit that initially I was quite disappointed. I thought it was a bit of a cop-out to make the child the culprit, especially when he did it unintentionally. However, the more I considered the implications of this (especially as I read on), I realised more and more the cleverness behind it. The Canon was, of course, the little boy, and he was the one who had asked Dalgliesh to look into the case.

I also found there was a great use of twists and turns. When the truth is revealed, you feel bad for Allegra; then you see she was blackmailing the maid for a very long time, and you switch back again suddenly. The story moved along very swiftly, but with a great amount of detail. The characters were very endearing, but it took only one small detail for you to see them in a new light.

The lengthy explanation of the truth was also very endearing. (And when I say lengthy, I mean lengthy in terms of a short story!) It covered every detail, and you suddenly saw things you didn't even realise had been important. It's such a classic reveal scene. This was definitely my favourite story in the collection, as it gave the illusion of being a much longer and more in-depth plot. It was beautifully crafted and well constructed. This was the cosy, festive, and light-hearted story that I was hoping to read.

Story 4: The Twelve Clues of Christmas

Travelling to his aunt's house on Christmas Eve, Sergeant Adam Dalgliesh is stopped by a man on the side of the road, who tells him his uncle has committed suicide in his house nearby, and he desperately needs help. Reluctantly, Dalgliesh visits the scene, and finds a lot more than he would expect from a suicide case.

Let me just start by saying that this story has such a great name. It's so festive, and I couldn't wait to read it! It was also nice to see the reappearance of Dalgliesh in this story, after enjoying the previous story which also saw him star.

The first paragraph was a real draw, and I think the irony was included to great effect.

"The figure who leaps from the side of the road in the darkness of a winter afternoon, frantically waving down the approaching motorist, is so much the creature of fiction that when it happened to the newly promote Sergeant Adam Dalgliesh his first thought was that he had somehow become involved in one of those Christmas short stories written to provide seasonal frisson for the readers of an upmarket weekly magazine."

I'll just gloss over the fact that this sentence is ridiculously and unnecessarily long, and say that I love details like this. Snippets of irony and humour are definitely up my street, and I thought this was a really great start to the final short story in this collection. It's easy to become a bit bored by the very end of such collections, and I was pleased to see that this story was going to be a bright one.

I did think that this story was a little more predictable than the others. I saw immediately that there had to be more to the note; it was far too suspicious. I also wondered immediately why a wife wouldn't visit her husband's family, even if she didn't care to. It turns out this was another important part of the mystery, so I'm quite proud for having picked up on that one. I did enjoy this story, but it didn't seem as carefully thought out as the others, although it was undoubtedly more interesting than some. It felt altogether very rushed and the plot seemed to me to be quite loose in places.

It was, however, very charming in it's setting. The ending was perhaps my favourite bit. On discussing the events with his aunt when he finally arrives at her house, Dalgliesh tells her:

"It was pure Agatha Christie."

The funny thing is that I was thinking the same thing throughout the entirety of The Twelve Clues of Christmas. It reminded me very much of Hercule Poirot's Christmas, and I wondered more than once while reading if that had provided any inspiration for the story. 

The Verdict

I'm not usually a fan of short stories; I always seem to find that the characters are lacklustre and the plot falls a bit flat. I surprised myself by really enjoying this collection. Maybe it was because it had a festive theme, or maybe it was because the stories were simply of a higher standard to those that I'm used to.

The style was very gentle across all the stories. This made them very easy to read, and the writing stood out as very beautiful and carefully planned. 

The Boxdale Inheritance was definitely my favourite story, for the reasons listed above. However, the other stories all had merits as well. I loved the continuity of using Adam Dalgliesh in more than one story, and I thought it was really interesting that P.D. James decided to use cases in hindsight for all but one story.

I do still feel that short stories are at a disadvantage, as they don't have the room for the author to create intricate plots and characters with a lot of depth. I think this collection was largely in the same boat. This being said, there were elements of each story that proved that they could stand up with the very best of short mysteries. I have no doubt that I'll be coming back to P.D. James in the future, but in my preferred format of a longer, more detailed novel.