Shakespeare's Christmas (Chapters 3-4)

Some of the observations about the Christmas Holiday Season really hit home.  Regarding public Christmas displays - “Unlike Shakespeare, Bartley was holding onto its manger scene, though I had never found plastic figures in a wooden shed exactly spiritual.  Carols blared endlessly from the speakers around the square, and all the merchants had lined their store windows with twinkling colored lights and artificial snow.  If there was a true religious emotion to be felt about Christmas, I had been too numbed by all this claptrap to feel it for the last three years.”  Aren’t most of us more than a little jaded by said “claptrap”?  It’s the people who continually get sucked into The Wonder Of Christmas year after year that I’m a little concerned about!

The arrival of Lily’s detective boyfriend, Jack, in Bartley is less of a surprise to us than it is to her.  Is it too much of a coincidence that a case he’s working on brings him to this small town at exactly the same time she is there for the wedding?  We’re not as amazed when these things happen in real life as we are skeptical when they happen in fiction.  And is it just a further coincidence that murders are suddenly taking place; murders that are unrelated to Jack’s investigation, as far as he or anyone else can tell?  And if that isn’t coincidental enough, Lily happens to be the one to stop the homeless purse snatcher, who seems to be in possession of what might be the weapon used in the murders. 

“I shook my head as I stared out the living room window.  I was not a law enforcement officer or any kind of detective, but several things about the homeless-man-as-murderer scenario just didn’t make sense.”  She may not be a detective, but she analyzes the data she does have with razor-sharp logic.  “If this man was clever enough to hide Diane Dykeman’s purse, which he almost certainly had stolen, why hadn’t he been clever enough to get rid of the evidence of a much more serious crime?”  The fact that the doctor was still sitting at his desk when murdered tells her that the murderer was someone he knew and trusted – otherwise, he would have gotten out of his chair to deal with the stranger, who couldn’t have snuck up on him.  Lily may not be a detective (or a murder mystery writer!) but she sure thinks like one. 

In Jack’s hotel room that night, along with some very steamy bedroom action (Harris leaves just enough to the imagination, thank you very much) Lily gets the full explanation of the case he’s working on.  Is this realistic?  Does a private investigator share everything he knows about a case with his girlfriend?  If he does, should we suspect his professionalism?  Yes, the case revolves around Lily’s sister, so the outcome of the investigation is very much in her interest.  But doesn’t that make it even less excusable to divulge sensitive information to her about the case?  He understandably trusts Lily with the information, but if it should come to light later that she knew all the details, that could reflect very badly on his professionalism to most observers.

 

Chapter 4 ends with the discovery of yet another murder.  With the homeless purse snatcher presumably behind bars, our prime suspect can be crossed off.  We saw that coming, of course, with the suspected murder weapon having been clumsily planted near his “nest” of cardboard boxes, but the characters had to consider him the most likely suspect until now.  If anyone has guessed who the murderer(s) is/are, out of the possibilities presented so far, they’re a much more seasoned Mystery Reader than I am.  That’s not saying much; I’m content to just let the plot unfold and see how the mystery gets solved.  That’s Jack’s job – and Lily’s, too, I guess!





Next week:  Chapters 5-6