A Christmas Grace by Anne Perry

Emily Radley, Thomas Pitt's sister-in-law, is called on by Pitt to travel to Connemara, Ireland to visit her aunt, who moved away from the family when she married an Irishman who was Catholic over her brother, Emily and Charlotte's father's objections. She even changed her beliefs for him, from Church of England to Roman Catholic. Now, with her husband long dead and winter setting in, she is alone and dying in Connemara.

Thomas asks Emily to go to Connemara on Charlotte's behalf, as Charlotte is ill with Bronchitis and cannot go. Emily is in mind to refuse, but her husband, the common born MP, persuades her to go, knowing she will always regret it if she doesn't. Finally, she does go, although her spirit shrinks at being apart from her beloved husband and two small children at Christmas time.

Arriving in the small seaside village in Connemara where Susannah lives, Emily is awed by the beauty she sees all around her. But she is aware of a pall that hangs over the village, which is alluded to by Father Tyndale, the village priest. But what could cause such problems in a lovely village filled with warm and welcoming people?

A boat capsized on the water and a lone male survivor provide her with an answer. The young man who survives, David, raises hackles all over town. It seems that David reminds the village of another young man who was also shipwrecked here, someone whose gentle questions raised a great deal of anger and ire, enough for someone to kill him. Father Tyndale is most distressed by the crime, for he knows everyone in town, and he didn't believe anyone capable of murder. So the fact that someone in the village killed him makes him question his own judgement and faith.

And Susanna is troubled by this as well, as her husband appears to have ferreted out the secret of the killer but not told anyone, even her. More than just the tragedy of the murder, secret suspicions have poisoned the villagers against one another as they wonder who the murderer is. And with the only man who knew the secret dead, the truth must be dragged out again to set the people at rest and save the lovely village. But is Emily up to the task of discovering the murderer, and of surviving the peril it might put her in?

Unlike most of the murder mysteries Anne Perry usually writes, this book, like most of the Christmas series, takes place in a small town with a limited number of characters and a mystery that is almost straightforward. The mystery is solved by the main character not with acts of detection and derring-do, but with a knowledge of people and a great deal of talking and asking questions. It's almost a cozy mystery series, like those that Agatha Christie used to write.

Characterization is all in this series, and there is no one better to do it than Anne Perry, who is a past master of characterization, In the words, actions and manner of the characters, you get a great deal of information, from what makes them uncomfortable to some secrets they may be hiding. Understanding those secrets, and the motivations in them that drive people to kill, is what drives the mystery.

This series is the perfect antidote to long, involved mysteries with a cast of hundreds and much to-ing and fro-ing before the mystery is solved. The book has a small number of pages and an equally pared-down list of characters, but the sense of adventure and mystery is just as large as the bigger books. These are calm mysteries, where there will be no violent confrontation or shootout with the police. The only anxiety revolves around how the mystery will be solved, and who will be the murderer.

If you enjoy a short mystery you can read in a day or so, with a wonderful sense of place that will make you seem to be inhabiting the location where the story takes place and characters so real they practically lift themselves off the page, this is definitely a series you'll want to look into, especially if you like the other series that Anne Perry writes, as all of these involve characters other than the main characters from those books. This series is a triumph, and this book will leave you feeling both content and contemplative.