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  • Mistletoe and Murder

  • The Daisy Dalrymple Mysteries, Book 11
  • By: Carola Dunn
  • Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
  • Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (404 ratings)
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Mistletoe and Murder

By: Carola Dunn
Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
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Summary

Seething resentments, well-kept family secrets, and a savage murder set the stage for Christmas in Cornwall in this cozy holiday installment of the Daisy Dalrymple mysteries.

In December 1923, the formidable Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple has decided that for Christmas the family will all gather at Brockdene in Cornwall at the invitation of Lord Westmoor. Her daughter - Daisy Dalrymple Fletcher - is somewhat less than pleased but yields to the demands of her mother, especially as she'll be there just before the holidays working on another article for Town and Country about the estate itself. But the family gathering quickly goes awry.

Brockdene, it seems, is occupied only by the Norvilles - poor relations of Lord Westmoor - and Westmoor himself won't be joining them. So Daisy; her husband, Detective Chief Inspector Alec Fletcher of Scotland Yard; and their family must spend their Christmas holiday trapped in an ancestral estate with a rich history of lore, ghost stories, and rumors of hidden treasure and secret passageways with a family seething with resentments, grudges, and a faintly scandalous history.

The veneer of civility that pervades the halls of Brockdene, however, begins to wear thin when long-held family secrets threaten to bubble over, and one of the Christmas guests is found savagely murdered. With few clues as to who committed the murder, and with too many motives as to why, it is once again up to Daisy to sort out the truth that lies beneath a generation of poisonous secrets.

©2002 Carola Dunn (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

What listeners say about Mistletoe and Murder

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Generally good performance of an enjoyable story

Any additional comments?

I mostly love the Daisy Dalrymple stories which are delightful mysteries with a regular cast of pleasant, well portrayed characters and with the sex and violence depicted in a gentle or implied manner. (I am quite happy to cope with sex and violence but these stories have a lovely, gentle 1920s feel to them which makes a nice change from some of the more gruesome crime novels.)

I was therefore really pleased to find recordings of the early stories on Audible and was hugely disappointed by these recordings, performed by Americans with absolutely no concept of how the English upper classes spoke in the 20s. It was therefore a relief to discover Lucy Rayner's performances of stories further on in the series. She totally grasps the accents and her performances as Daisy, Alec and most of the other characters fit very well with how I had imagined them to sound.

Mistletoe and Murder is, as one would expect from the title, a Christmas story with a murder thrown in, set in a remote Cornish country house and with an interesting cast of characters in addition to Daisy, Alec, Belinda and Derek and the Dowager Viscountess, whom we have met before. I enjoyed the story and felt that, generally, the performance of the different characters was good and they were well differentiated. There are some odd mispronunciations that are a little annoying but not overly intrusive. But why,oh why, oh WHY did Lucy choose to give a Cornish country solicitor a truly appalling Scottish accent? Fortunately this character does not appear in every scene and did not therefore totally detract from my enjoyment of the story, but a poor Cornish accent would have been a lot easier to cope with in the circumstances. As a result I have taken one star off my performance rating.

Despite the problems however, I am looking forward to listening to more of Lucy Rayner's recordings of the Daisy Dalrymple series.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Lost opportunities

Approximately the first third of the book sets the scene in an incredibly long winded and Blytonesque way - it reads like a Famous Five story. Just as the unfortunate reader is about to give up the will to live the murder is committed and then it's downhill all the way. The victim is an uninteresting and unsympathetic character, most of the other Christmas attendees are boring, pompous and one dimensional. Combined with an almost comically bad narration, bad timing, poor pronunciation and shocking characterisation it offers the final nail in the coffin of a disastrous listen. I have really tried to persevere with Daisy and her narrators but I have come to the conclusion that it really isn't worth the effort.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Appalling Narration

It is a pity that these enjoyable reads are totalling spoilt by the awful voices of the narrator. One has to wonder if the author gets to listen to these recording before they are released to the public? If I was the author I'd be very annoyed at how my characters have been portrayed. Policemen are made to sound as if they have no intelligence whatsoever and the female lead sounds likes she rather be competing with screeching seagulls,. One question really does need an answer and that is why would an obvious Cornish character have the accent of a very unwell Scottish person? Perhaps the narrator should learn the different accents associated with the British Isles before taking on another roll!!

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

More than anything, I feel sorry for Alec

I dare say it’s not a future plot point, but Alec can’t ever catch a break! The only way that I can see that he can enjoy his time off on annual leave, is if he were to divorce Daisy and have her sent to Australia.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Brilliant

Where does Mistletoe and Murder rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Pretty high.

Any additional comments?

I have this book on my Kindle, but had actually forgotten who dunit, nothing new there then! A thoroughly enjoyable book in the usual Carola Dunn style.

My only complaint is............ why did Lucy Rayner narrate the other books in the series? I hope to hear more from this lady in the future.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Awful narration more suited to Milly Molly Mandy than Mistletoe Murders

The narration really spoilt this. I just couldn’t take it seriously as a murder mystery.

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

I really struggled with this !

This had promise but at one stage morphed into a book for the under tens , I found I didn’t even care who had done it and was just annoyed by the voiceover so much that it detracted from the story !

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Nice story

I liked the story especially the ending but the male voices that the narrator used didn’t feel right.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic

As always I love the caricatures in this well written story they are so relatable, such an easy book to read as are all in this series
The performance was brilliant
All in all a book I could not put down

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good for a free series

I like the way the stories are all very different (apart from murders!). Lots of series get the bit samey but not this one…. so far

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