Where would detective stories be without Wodehousian aunts bent on putting a stop to any hanky-panky? Gordon Parrott is an assistant DA in New York, but when his upstate aunt Hester summons him to her residence for Christmas he feels obliged to go -- and to take his attractive wife Liz. Passions run hot in rural settlements and my the time they arrive there is already a fair bit of confusion. Is Hester's son Clifford really married to the melancholy Ruth, or engaged to the attractive Amy? What is the role of George, the young man with the Cary Grant profile? There is drinking, and flirting -- and then a murder.
Liz assumes the role of an amateur sleuth, nearly getting herself killed twice in the process, while Gordon pursues official channels. Another death merely muddles things further. But the two of them sort it out in the end.
A fair-to-middling example of the Rice/Lockridge school of couple-based detection, by a writer who is new to me. The writing is good and the story moves along, but the big secret was pretty obvious early in the piece, and I was never quite convinced by the motivation. A B minus -- with points taken off for the female sleuth who 'feels things in her bones'.
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