{"id":7217,"date":"2026-10-21T06:24:41","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T13:24:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=7217"},"modified":"2026-10-21T06:24:41","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T13:24:41","slug":"daryl-wood-gerber-a-classic-case-of-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/daryl-wood-gerber-a-classic-case-of-murder\/","title":{"rendered":"Daryl Wood Gerber: A Classic Case of Murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

Literary Dining Mystery #3<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It’s Christmas time in Bramblewood, NC and personal chef and caterer Allie Catt is getting ready for a special literary dinner party with a Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol <\/em>theme. What makes the event so special? An actual first-edition of Dickens’ famous novella will be on display.<\/p>\n

The setting is the Amber Lantern, an inn owned by Noeline Merriweather (mom of Allie’s best friend Tegan); there’s a snowstorm; most of the major characters are staying at the inn\u2026 it’s a classic Mousetrap<\/em> setup, just as the title indicates! There’s also list of characters at the beginning of the book. The only Golden Age element missing is a map of the Inn and Bramblewood.<\/p>\n

During the evening, the novella disappears and the expert hired to verify its authenticity is murdered. Allie’s boyfriend police detective Zach Armstrong finds no shortage of suspects from Erwin Scroggie, the wealthy business man who owns the book, to his various relatives. Is Scroggie scamming the insurance company by claiming the book was stolen? What about is relatives with financial problems, all of whom are vying for his favor? Did you one of them steal the book for financial gain? Did one hide it in hopes of winning Uncle Scroggie’s favor by later finding the missing book? Or could it be a Dickens lover who would dearly love to own a rare volume, like Dalton Fraiser? And what about the rumors that the book also contained an actual letter written by Dickens, perhaps to his mistress?<\/p>\n

This is the first book I’ve read in this series and I was entranced by descriptions, the characters, and especially by the Christmas Carol theme. I’m impressed with the author’s Dickens research! Like A Christmas Carol,<\/em> this book is divided into sections called staves. This is not just a clever tribute to the book that inspired the theme. Gerber has a character explain that Dickens named sections of his famous book after the staff (the lines and spaces music is written in) “believing his tale to be joyful and uplifting, used staves to connect the story to the musical tradition of carols.” Clearly it’s also a clever reference to the title of A Christmas Carol<\/em>, a connection I’ve never made in my life despite reading Dickens’ novella many times.<\/p>\n

Another aspect of the book I’m impressed with is the recipe section at the end. Yes, many cozies include recipes but this is the first I’ve seen with two versions for most of recipes: regular and gluten free. Being diagnosed with Celiac Disease a few years ago changed my view on food; at first I couldn\u2019t even read about food because I missed gluten so much. I’m doing better now and can even look at recipes and think “how could I make this gluten-free?” Even so, I am utterly thrilled to find recipes already converted to gluten-free!<\/p>\n

If you like classic mysteries, cozies, Christmas, Charles Dickens, and recipes, this book is for you!\u00a0 –\u00a0Cathy Akers-Jordan<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Literary Dining Mystery #3 It’s Christmas time in Bramblewood, NC and personal chef and caterer Allie Catt is getting ready for a special literary dinner party with a Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol theme. What makes the event so special? An actual first-edition of Dickens’ famous novella will be on display. The setting is the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2599,78,398,328,1120,1124,2340,1589],"class_list":["post-7217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-a-classic-case-of-murder","tag-cathy-akers-jordan","tag-christmas","tag-cozy","tag-daryl-wood-gerber","tag-kensington","tag-literary-dining","tag-recipes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7219,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7217\/revisions\/7219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}