A Christmas Gathering (Christmas Novella 17)
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- 3,99 €
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- 3,99 €
Publisher Description
A festive house party takes a sinister turn...
Victor Narraway and his wife, Lady Vespasia, are invited to spend Christmas at Cavendish Hall with a gathering of old acquaintances, but it is not the quiet, rather stiff house party they had expected. While there, Victor must undertake his final mission for Special Branch, reminiscent of another one in the past, at which he had tragically failed.
When disaster strikes and one of the guests is left for dead, Victor fears that history is repeating itself. But which of them is intent on murder? And can Victor accept that he is not to blame...?
A Christmas Gathering is the gripping new festive mystery from the pen of Anne Perry, the master of Victorian crime.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in Victorian England, bestseller Perry's 17th Christmas mystery (after 2018's A Christmas Revelation) is less rewarding than others in the series. Victor Narraway, from the author's Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series, who has stepped down as the head of Special Branch, travels with his wife from London to the country estate of the Cavendishes, where they are to spend Christmas. Narraway is on a secret mission to take custody of "submarine blueprints, discreetly doctored," so as to be unusable in actually developing such a vessel. Narraway is to pass the fakes on through British spy networks to Germany, in order to out a suspected traitor in the intelligence services. Twenty years earlier, Narraway had a similar assignment in Normandy that ended with the death of a young female Special Branch agent. History seems to repeat itself when someone attacks Iris Watson-Watt, a fellow guest at Cavendish Manor, after she passes the blueprints to him, leading Narraway to play sleuth to identify her assailant. An obvious villain disappoints. This is an unmemorable effort by a prolific author who is usually better.
