11 September 2025.
ISBN: 978-1-80550210-4 (PB)
Sarah Vane, a retired GP has just returned form a bracing walk with her Scottie dog Hamish. How lovely she decided to be in the warm curled up with a cup of tea and a novel. Looking out of the window she sees a flake of snow drifting down. Then her letter box rattled and there on the mat was leaflet. Feeling her sixty-something years, she bent to pick it up the leaflet. It showed a man in a Santa hat pointing his fingers to…
The Merstairs Muses needs you this Christmas: Join our Jungle Bells tomorrow.
Sarah had heard of the Merstairs Muses and it was the one organisation that her bubbly next-door neighbour and best friend Daphne Roux never seemed to have joined. She was intrigued and felt that it would be good for her and Daphne. Belting out a carol was always lovely.
Sarah had seen less of Daphne of late since Charles Diggory, the handsome owner of an antiques shop on the sea front had finally freed himself from his troublesome ex-wife Francesca. As a result, he and Sarah had enjoyed quiet a few candlelit dinners.
Thinking she would have a chat with her friend Daphne tomorrow her peace was shattered by the doorbell and there was Daphne keen for them to join the Merstairs Muses. This is our moment Daphne went on. Usually, they audition people, but it looks like they’ll take anyone on now.
The next evening Sarah swapped the peace of her sofa for the All-Saints village hall. She’d rung Charles to see if he wanted to come too, but he said that he was too busy. They had been there for a while, and the atmosphere was certainly lively. Daphne had told Sarah that there had been trouble in the choir but to Sarah it all seemed pretty jolly. Then a woman stepped forward and introduced a big bear of a man, stocky and in his late fifties. He didn’t look like a jolly Santa as he glared at the choir. ‘I am sure that he needs no introduction, the world-famous award-winning singer Daffyd Jones, my husband. A young man stepped forward with his arm in a sling and offered Daffyd a cup of coffee. Daffyd grabbed it and said, ‘More sugar next time boy’ and shoved the cup back to him. The tenors looked mortified as Daffyd continued to thunder at them, and the rest of the choir.
Although they had only just got there Sarah was already sure that she didn’t like Daffyd Jones, who was now giving a talk saying that he is listening out for brilliance. She noted his bloated body and angry looking face. Daphne, she said, ‘let’s go’.
Then the soprano soloist Matilda Webster burst into a rendering of Silent Night; and it was so beautiful it gave Sarah goosebumps. Matilda had a wonderfully pure voice. As she finished the choir burst into thunderous applause. Daffyd, screamed at her that she sounded like some old slapper in a tarty dress. Oops!
Later tired of his tirade to the members of the choir, Sarah decides to pay him a visit and finds him dead in his office.
As Sarah talks to the devastated choir members, she soon discovers many had a reason to dislike Daffyd. Was it the soprano who was humiliated by him in front of the choir for missing her high note? His long-suffering wife suspected an affair – are her floods of tears fake? And why was his picture-perfect forever home put on the market just days before his death?
Who killed Daffyd? The list is long. As more of Daffyd’s devious
doings come to light.
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Reviewer: Lizzie Sirett
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