A Christmas Tragedy cover art

A Christmas Tragedy

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About this listen

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories.

A Christmas Eve party at Clevere Hall ends in tragedy when the host is found stabbed to death. Major Ceely certainly wasn’t short of enemies, but who hated him enough to commit the crime?

Public Domain (P)2018 Soundings Mystery Traditional Detectives
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Nasty, mean-spirited tale that does not hide its contempt of the poor. I probably should have seen it coming as it is written by a Baroness but this really exemplifies the worst class prejudices of the time. Worse still, there is no intelligence in the plotting: no hidden clues; no deduction; no intricate machinations.

(Spoilers)
The heroine (constantly referred to using a cod-Homeric epithet that drives the listener to madness) merely guesses at the catalyst for the murder and assumes it must be the poor people because they are so dirty and their clothes are cheap. The author even makes one an ‘imbecile’ to drive home the point about the lesser worth of the down-at-heel.

It was a deeply distasteful and depressing listen for the season.
Why on earth was this not left in obscurity?

Season of Goodwill does not extend to poor people

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