Several unrelated passengers get stuck before Christmas in a train going to Manchester. They decide to try to reach the village of Hemmersby on foot, but the snowfall is so great that they can't even see their path and they get lost. All these people arrive to a house with the door unlocked, the fire burning in the fireplaces and the kettle boiling over, and have no other option that to call it a day and sleep on it. However, there is a spirit of disquiet and mystery in the house who puts all of them on the edge. One of the passengers is even supposed to be a psychic. Is there a ghost in the house? Doors that get locked and unlocked, the nervous breakdown caused by sleeping in a certain bed, sitting on a certain chair or looking at a particular portrait... Smith is the last one in arriving, but he denies to have come from the train.

There are several things which go against my suspension of disbelief.So many people jumping train in the middle of the mother of all snow storms cries to heaven - you are stuck and that's it nothing you can do about it except blaming TfL.

Today.

Taken from the shelves at Tuesday's meet-up.

A mysteriously empty house, a murder, a snowstorm and general spookiness all enjoyably mixed together in an entertaining story. And I agree with veleta that setting off in a blizzard is not the most sensible thing to do!

Posted to my NSS partner.
Enjoy!

Thank you so much, rahar109! I loved everything in my Secret Santa package (although I had a hard time unwrapping all the gifts :-))))))

This was a nice cosy mystery, which reminded me of the lovely period dramas produced by the BBC. A group of strangers gets lost in a snow storm on Christmas Eve and they all end up in a very inviting house that seems to have been abandoned in a rush. But why?

The characters, dialogues and scenario were all so very 1930’s that I couldn’t help but smile while reading certain chapters. I felt the resolution of the mystery was a bit too hasty and certain characters were “dropped” in the plot near the end, without much context. I would have preferred a slower burn in terms of tension, but they can’t all be Agatha Christie, right?

Ho! Ho! Ho! This book is going to Spain for the EU Secreta Santa 2023.

Thank you sooo much for the most amazing Christmas parcel! You have been a brilliant EU Secret Santa! :)