Private investigator Dan Armstrong, accompanied by his wife and his canine sidekick, Oscar, are spending the days before Christmas in a luxurious Alpine chalet tucked away in a hidden valley. It should be the perfect escape, except the owner is in fear for his life.
A house full of secrets...
Amid perfect winter wonderland scenery, the more Dan discovers about his host and the other guests, he realises that all is not as it seems. What should be a happy family party is riddled with rancour, mistrust and hatred.
A killer in the snow?
Then the snow falls – fast and heavy – and within moments, someone is dead. Accident, suicide, or murder? As the snow closes in, Dan has to work out if he's looking for a killer, or whether he and Oscar are barking up the wrong tree. (Synopsis courtesy of Goodreads.)
Ordinary, Dan is tasked with figuring out whodunnit, but this go around, his goal is to prevent a murder, which was an interesting change of pace for one of my favorite private investigators and his canine sidekick, Oscar! Another difference is the background scenery. While mostly all of this author’s stories takes place in fantastically sunny and warm locales that one can only dream of visiting someday, me included, this go around there is a lot of snow, adding a complex level for Dan when he tries to do some sleuthing. It’s remote and it’s far from modern civilization, the perfect place to commit a crime.
The primary question becomes: did a crime take place? The man he is set to protect becomes a tragic victim, all leads pointing to an accidental death or suicide. True to Dan’s nature, he sets out interrogating the other guests of the chalet, working methodically through his list in order to narrow down and figure out the truth behind the potential transgression. I’ve always appreciated the way Dan operates, showing his skill sets from his days as a former detective. It isn’t easy, and there are plenty of twists and turns along the way when one suspect comes up empty and leads turn into dead ends, making Dan question everything. It helped to keep the reader on the hook, too, never really knowing what was on the other end of Dan’s discoveries.
I say this a lot after reading a book from the Armstrong and Oscar Cozy Mystery series, but Oscar is just the best partner for Dan, hands down! He is such a charismatic canine, always there to assist characters in their time of need, or to do all he can for Dan, whether it’s as a support system or at times, his protector. This go around, there was another dog for Oscar to play with named Winston, who was a sweet addition to the group. There was a pretty important moment involving Winston that really got the story moving forward.
The juxtaposition between the quiet, remote snowy Alpine chalet during a holiday no less, with the jarring events that take place there, really was a nice way to amp up the fear factor and add an element of mystery and suspense. Murder at Christmas was another great addition for Dan and Oscar and this series!
Thanks to Rachel's Random Resources for the book in exchange for an honest review.
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I’m a man. And a pretty old man as well. I studied languages at Nottingham University a long time ago and then lived and worked in France and Switzerland before going to work in Italy for seven years. My Italian wife and I then came back to the UK with our little daughter (now long-since grown up) where I ran a big English language school for many years. We now live in a sleepy little village in Devonshire. I’ve been writing almost all my life but it was only 13 years ago that I finally managed to find a publisher who liked my work enough to offer me my first contract.
I started off writing romances but after 28 of them, I knew I wanted to try something different, and so the first of the Armstrong and Oscar cozy mysteries, Murder in Tuscany, was born three years ago. I’ve been having a lot of fun ever since getting to know the dynamic duo (and introducing them to people all over the world). These books are cosy crime [a genre I didn't even know existed when I started writing them). They are murder mysteries, but not gory, over-violent stuff, but stories designed to exercise the brain of the reader and to put a smile on their face. Maybe it’s because there are so many horrible things happening in the world today that I feel I need to do my best to provide something to cheer my readers up. My books provide escapism to some gorgeous locations all over my beloved Italy.
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