Christmas Books: more unfortunate relations, and counting your pins

Christmas Book Scenes!

During December I like to post entries which are more Christmas in Books than Clothes in Books. With Christmas-y crime stories, I often feel the need to discuss whether they live up to their seasonal promise, and whether there are children around... and today's book is one of those

Black Headed Pins by Constance & Gwenyth Little

 

published 1938

I bought this book after reading a review by Tracy over at Bitter Tea and Mystery, and I note that in my comment on her post I wrote that I would be reviewing it at Christmas 2020. Ah well. The cover would have made me think of Tracy anyway, because she collects books with skeletons, or just bones, on the covers, but I think she must already have this Rue Morgue edition.

I very much agreed with Tracy’s review: I too am deeply suspicious of allegedly comedic murder stories, and it was only Tracy’s sayso that made me take a chance. In fact it is a proper crime novel, with some amusing moments. It is short and to the point and clever.

What it is not, is Christmas-y. I often comment on the books that sell themselves as Christmas mysteries, mention it at the beginning, and then just abandon the idea (eg Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, The Crime at Noah’s Ark by Molly Thynne, Winifred Peck’s Arrest the Bishop?) but this one takes some kind of prize. It’s set at a houseparty in upstate New Jersey, and the relatives are gathering, and it is clearly stated that this is a Christmas event, and various appropriate preparations are made. But the moment everyone arrives, Christmas is pretty much forgotten. However, there are worse things writers can do, and there IS an emphasis on wintry weather so we’ll let them off.

Our narrator is a young woman, Leigh Smith, who is working as housekeeper to a miserable old woman called Mrs Ballister. The usual variety of relatives and strangers are about to descend on the house, though Mrs B is outraged at the idea of extra expense, and has no intention of making her hospitality lavish, or the house warm. Leigh is doing her best to make it a cheery party, but obviously a murder is coming her way…

Investigations follow, and more crimes, and an absolutely hilarious local law enforcer turns up to solemnly eat his way through Mrs Ballister’s food (to her horror) and make very funny remarks. He is the classic local hick-whom-you-must-not-underestimate and we learn some nuances of the term ‘youse.’

Leigh is an excellent narrator and heroine, witty and stoic and getting on with things and refusing to be put off by what is going on. She is refreshingly calm about what’s going on:

[ A character who is married but has left his wife at home…] ‘Good Lord! Amy knows I’m married – my wife knows that I go out with Amy occasionally. We are just friends.’

Berg nudged me and murmured, ‘How about being just friends with me Smithy?’ and I choked down a desire to giggle.

The descriptions of the housekeeping were entertaining and fascinating, and as Kate at Cross-Examining Crime says in her review of this book, there is a very unusual character – a man who is straightforwardly good at clearing up.

I did guess who the killer was, although the ways and exact motives eluded me. The plot gallops along at a fierce pace, with revelations coming all the time.

More observations that are not criticisms: there was evidence for my contention that family parties in real life nearly always include children, but Christmas crime books on the whole dispense with them – see my blogpost on this topic. Given the number and variety of guests here, you would expect someone to have offspring.

And – those black-headed pins. It’s a great title, but really they are a very disposable part of the plot. And their faint trail depends entirely on the fact that Mrs Ballister would buy a paper of pins and then actually keep track of them ie there would be an absolute fixed set of them, not open to any being lost along the way, the number immoveable. Call me Mrs Careless but my mind boggled at this, no mattery how miserly Mrs B was… And I thought of a better relevance for them (lock-picking) and was disappointed to be wrong.

[Coincidence: people keeping track of their pins turn up in the recent new Marple book - which has modern-day writers trying their hands at a story featuring Agatha Christie's sleuth. And that story flashes back to Lord Peter Wimsey and this short story here… Xmas in a Country House, with Party Games (clothesinbooks.blogspot.com)]

Anyway, nothing could stop me from enjoying this book very much.
I found two rather eerie pictures that looked as though they might be a dark sinister house in New Jersey:

File:Wilhelm Walther, Weimar, 1-037-038-7559.tif - Wikimedia Commons

Living room in E. Ashbaugh house at Christmas 1932 (3192727350).jpg

And then had to cheer things up with those 30s women decorating the tree  at the top of the post – a picture I think I use every year on the blog.

I have previously featured a book by yet another Little sister: Iris, writing under a pseudonym, Death Wears Pink Shoes by Robert James.