A Puzzle in a Pear Tree
Curl up by the fire with a Christmas-inspired mystery
By PHOENIX CARLISLE | Cover courtesy of BANTAM
With the holiday season puzzling us around the corner, A Puzzle in a Pear Tree by Parnell Hall is the mystery novel you’ll read on those late nights by the twinkling holiday lights. It’s perfect for a season of secrets, strong bonds, and that nostalgic Christmas feeling.
‘Tis the season to be jolly, but Cora Felton, shanghaied into The Twelve Days of Christmas as a most reluctant maid-a-milking, has every right to feel like a grinch. When someone steals the partridge from the pear tree and replaces it with a cryptic puzzle she has no hope of solving, it’s almost more than the Puzzle Lady can bear. But then smug crossword creator Harvey Beerbaum solves the acrostic, and it turns out to be a poem promising the death of an actress.
This is more like it! Could the threat be aimed at Cora and her thespian debut? Or at Sherry, one of the ladies-dancing? Or at Sherry’s nemesis, the pageant’s predatory lead, Becky Baldwin? Cora and Sherry barely have time for a mystery, what with trimming Christmas trees and buying Christmas presents, but rehearsals go on, under police protection — until a killer strikes elsewhere in a most unexpected manner.
Ordinarily Cora Felton would be delighted to have two murders to solve. But this time she finds herself vying with a visiting Scotland Yard inspector who appears to have an all-too-personal stake in solving the crimes. Cora does too when her own niece becomes a prime suspect and the murderer strikes again. Is someone trying to shut down the Christmas pageant? Cora would be only too happy if that were the case, but she fears the secrets lie deeper. Now she is interviewing witnesses, breaking into motel rooms, finding evidence, planting evidence, and having a merry old time. In fact, she would be perfectly happy — if this wasn’t turning out to be a Christmas to die for!
A Puzzle in a Pear Tree was such a fun, cheesy read. Cora’s passion to give the fleeting answers to the puzzle mysteries, along with her concerted scheming to get out of the Christmas pageant was cracking me up the entire time. I really loved how the book centered around the Christmas pageant and we were able to see more of the production as it went on. It was kind of hard for me to picture full adults with jobs doing a Christmas pageant. It was a small town atmosphere so it had a lot of characters who were ranging from teenagers to mid-30s, which made me understand Cora’s need to get out of it.
The book was great as a standalone but I would recommend reading the previous books beforehand and I might even dive into them because I would love a lot more context surrounding the characters because there were a lot of inside jokes that I couldn’t catch up on. The book felt very nostalgic, almost ’80s Christmas, because of how they describe all the Christmas decorations and the phrases they use.
Now let’s talk about the actual mystery. Was it easy to catch on? Absolutely! But that’s what makes it so fun — you feel like you’re a character in the book. A good mystery will immerse the reader into the narrative and invite them to actually want to solve the mystery as part of the plot. I would definitely love to read it a second time just to pick up on all the clues that I missed, like character behavior or certain scenes that played out in specific ways. I am always such a sucker for a good cheesy romance novel around the Christmas season but once I saw this book on the library shelf, it caught my eye. It’s a very unique plot line that’s centered around Christmas. I’ve never really seen a Christmas mystery before so it intrigued me. If you’re someone who enjoys the Christmas season but maybe isn’t all into the fluff of the holiday, I would definitely recommend this book.
A Puzzle in a Pear Tree by Parnell Hall is the mystery to solve as you are surrounded by all the merry activities that catch us all. Be prepared to do puzzles, know every lyric of The 12 Days of Christmas and check behind corners for the next clue. Happy Holidays!
