A Christmas Peril

J. A. Hennrikus

Sep 2017 · Llewellyn Worldwide

About this ebook

Sully Must Get Her Childhood Friend Off the Naughty List Before They're Both Scrooged

When Edwina "Sully" Sullivan's life imploded, she left behind her job on the police force and her unfaithful husband to start a new life as the general manager of her hometown theater, the Cliffside Theater Company.

For five years, she focused on budgets instead of crime and kept the Cliffside running alongside its mercurial artistic director. But when her childhood friend is suspected of killing his father, no one is looking for another culprit. So, in between keeping A Christmas Carol on budget and Scrooge sober, Sully dusts off her investigative skills to find a murderer. Her two lives collide when her ex-husband arrives on the scene to play lawyer and she's forced to confront her past in order to save her present.

Ratings and reviews

A Christmas Peril by J.A. Hennrikus is the first story in A Theater Cop Mystery series. Edwina “Sully” Sullivan has been the general manager of the Cliffside Theater Company in Trevorton, Massachusetts for the last five years since leaving the force (and her ex-husband). Sully is busy with preparations for their annual performance of A Christmas Carol, but she is taking time out to attend the funeral of Peter Whitehall. Peter’s son, Eric is a friend and Sully is tending the event for him. When Eric ends up arrested for Peter’s murder, Sully puts her detecting skills to work finding the real killer. Sully has her hands full with keeping the budget on track for A Christmas Carol, replacing an actor, dealing with Patrick King who cannot remember his lines and has a drinking problem (along with a huge ego), and finding Peter’s killer. When I started reading A Christmas Peril, I went back to check that this was the first book. I felt like I was plopped down in the middle of a series. The book is very confusing in the beginning. It felt like the book was written out of order (with the beginning in the middle and the middle at the beginning). The pace of the story is a little too slow for my liking and it felt dated (like it was written for a different time-period). The book lacked flow and smooth transitions. Many of the same details are repeated frequently (after I while I could recite them by rote). Sully became fixated on murder (obsessed). Too much of the book is focused on conjecture and hearsay (Sully going over the same details). I solved the crime at Peter’s funeral (it should not be that easy). There are a couple of possible love interests for Sully in the story. I could have done with less “flirting” and a more interesting/engaging mystery. At the end of the story, there are dangling threads (it felt unfinished) and it was convoluted. The Christmas aspect was very light (almost non-existent). A Christmas Peril would have benefited from more editing/rewriting.

About the author

J. A. Hennrikus is the author of the Theater Cop Mystery series. As Julianne Holmes, she writes the Agatha-nominated Clock Shop Mystery series for Berkley Prime Crime. Hennrikus blogs with the Wicked Cozy Authors, is on the board of Sisters in Crime, and is a member of Mystery Writers of America. She is also an arts administrator who lives in Massachusetts.