Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Rest You Merry by Charlotte MacLeod

Charlotte MacLeod (1922-2004) was the queen of the amusing cozy mystery.  Between 1978 and 1996, during the time the cozy began to be recognized as a subgenre, she turned out more than 30 books in four series. In classic sitcom fashion her main characters were always reasonable people doing their best to cope with the eccentrics and screwballs that surrounded them.

The Peter Shandy series of 10 books is set at a fictional small college in western Massachusetts. These books take one light-hearted potshot after another at academia while subtly expressing MacLeod’s concerns about the future of family-owned farms and the natural environment. Rest You Merry is the first title, introducing Peter Shandy as a tenured botany professor at Balaclava Agricultural College during the Christmas season. The college is realistic about the financial status of its students, most of whom are from small towns and farms, and encourages them in entrepreneurial ventures. The main fundraiser of the year is in December, when the campus hosts a winter fair called the Grand Illumination. The students pull children in sleds, sell baked goods and hot chocolate, host games, and generally do anything they can to generate a buck.

The college supports their efforts by decking every building on campus in Christmas lights, ornaments, and greenery. Shandy is the resident Scrooge who is happy the students are making money but doesn’t want to participate in the annual extravaganza of over-the-top embellishment. Every year his house is the only one without seasonal regalia. Every year the obnoxious chair of the decorating committee badgers him about his failure to measure up. This year Shandy reaches his breaking point. He hires a firm to hang lights, set to flash around the clock, and sets up a tape deck with a loudspeaker to blare Christmas songs in a never-ending loop. Satisfied with the lavish display of singular tastelessness, he leaves to celebrate Christmas elsewhere.

After a couple of days he is conscience-stricken and returns home to turn off the lights and music only to find the body of the committee chair behind his sofa. The college is quick to term the death an accident but Shandy is not so sure. His subsequent investigation revealed the victim had antagonized a number of people, and he suspects at least one of them had been goaded beyond endurance.

I first read these books for their wit but I return to them because I enjoy the droll but not cruel depiction of oddball characters. I also like to dissect the plots that appear to be effortlessly constructed but surely were not. This is a fine book to read at any time but especially now, with a couple of sugar cookies and a mug of something warm to drink.

·         Hardcover: 222 pages

·         Publisher: Otto Penzler Books (December 1, 1993) (Reprint)

·         ISBN-10: 1562870521

·         ISBN-13: 978-1562870522

Aubrey Hamilton © 2017
 

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal IT projects by day and reads mysteries at night.