tongue-in-cheek, cozy-mystery, witty, university, multiple-murder, romantic, suspense, amateur-sleuth, verbal-humor, situational-humor, snow-season, pranks, boozy-characters*****

Peter Shandy is fed up with all the nagging to "illuminate" his little house in the academic neighborhood, so he pulls his own prank on them. But his escape is cut short. And THEN he comes to find the body of a particular busy body in his own living room and has good reason that the death was not a simple accident of her invading his home. He and the deceased's husband agree, but the husband must be off to greet a brand new grandchild (and escape all the gossipy wives), but he does send a shit-tail relative to house-sit. And then...
The whole thing is a great hoot and the deadpan presentation by John McClain turns it into a real howler! ( )

I have read other books in this series and enjoyed them but I can't say I cared much for this one.Parts of this book just make me cringe. I admit it was written in 1978 but even for that time the attitude toward women seems quite outdated. Only the librarian works and the first victim (a woman) is roundly condemned in the neighborhood partly because she is a poor housekeeper. The Christmas parts of this were cute and the mystery was reasonably plotted but I am glad I did not purchase this one.
library book read 12/30/2022. ( )

Rest You Merry by Charlotte Macleod is a 2012 Mysterious Press/Open Road publication. (Originally published in 1978)

I’ve been curious about this series for ages, and I love reading through old cozy mystery series. The downside to that is trying to locate all the installments, since many of these older books are out of print or are priced outside my budget. Thankfully, I found a healthy number of Macleod’s Peter Shandy series in digital format on Hoopla while looking for holiday mysteries. As it turns out, this is both a Christmas themed book and the first book in the series, so it seemed the perfect time to dive in and test the waters.

For a book originally published in 1978 it held up well. There are a few remarks made that we might frown on, and some phrases popped up that were pretty funny. “When can we split for lunch?” Split? LOL! But the best one was referencing law enforcement as the ‘Fuzz’. That one made me laugh out loud. But, overall, the book is not all that dated. The mystery is solid, and I rather liked Peter Shandy. There were a few characters to keep up with, which was a little trying at times, and for a cozy mystery I was a little surprised at some of the language- no F-bombs or anything, but occasionally some words went beyond ‘mild language’, which is not typical for books in this category.

Other than that, this book got the series off to a good start. I have no idea if reading in order is required- I rather doubt it, to be honest- I’ll have to go with what books are available, though, either way. But I will most definitely read more books in the series whenever possible.

4 stars ( )

Laugh out loud funny, bachelor Professor Peter Shandy, must deal with Christmas, murder and an the unprecedented attention of the females in his sphere of colleagues at Balaclava Agricultural College in this biblo-mystery, when he first must inform his best friend that his wife was found dead by Peter after performing a prank on his neighbors. ( )

3.5 stars

Peter Shandy is a professor at a small college. Many of the faculty live close to each other, and at Christmas they go all out in their neighbourhood to decorate. It’s called the Illumination Festival and it attracts people out to see the lights. While Peter is away, there is a Christmas party. When Peter returns, he finds the assistant librarian dead in his house. It appears she was trying to fix some decorations and she fell. But, on looking closer, Peter doesn’t think it was an accident. The last time the librarian was seen, she was leaving the party.

I quite liked this. It’s a quick read and, unfortunately, the first in a series. I will continue on (if I can find the next book(s), as this one was originally published in 1978). I don’t read a lot of Christmas-themed books, so the Christmas-y stuff was kind of fun, too. ( )