Murder at Holly House
ISBN: 9781804992357
Description
Yorkshire, 1952. Christmas is fast approaching when a dead stranger is found lodged up the chimney of Holly House in the snow-covered village of Elderby. Is he a simple thief, or a would-be killer? Inspector Frank Grasby is ordered to investigate. But as is often the way for him, things don’t go according to plan. When the local doctor’s husband is murdered, Grasby begins to realize that everyone in Elderby is hiding something. And if he can’t uncover the truth soon, the whole country will pay a dreadful price.
Reviewed on 27th April 2025
It’s 1949 and a Yorkshire police officer in disgrace is sent to a rural station to get him out of the way. But of course he finds more and more intrigue to investigate.
I was expecting something more traditional from this mystery story, and so was surprised by what I got. It doesn’t follow the typical tropes of the genre and lots of things go on that I wasn’t expecting.
The character is annoyingly mysteriously complex. There are a lot of suggestions of incompetence, mixed up with insinuations about previous adventures which suggest anything but. I found him quite frustrating to read about.
The plot felt a bit hard to follow - there was almost too much going on, and I think my expectations that things would develop in a certain way led me to not notice so much the things that were actually happening.
In general, probably not my cup of tea, and I think I’ll steer back in lane and follow more genre-typical mysteries when I need that fix in future.