Berdie Elliott is a former investigative reporter, and the wife of the new vicar of Aiden Kirkwood. This is a new calling for Hugh, after a military career, and Berdie has retired from her own career to be the vicar's wife. But she hasn't given up her skills or her active mind, and when an elderly parishioner, Miriam Livingston, is murdered in her home after an evening of caroling and an Advent party at the vicarage, Berdie can't help looking into things. Especially when the village constable is willfully blind to anything but the most obvious evidence, and locks up the most immediately obvious suspect, Jamie Donovan, who quarreled with Miriam Livingston at the party, and whose engraved screwdriver was found near the victim's body and had clearly been used as the murder weapon.
Hugh wants Berdie to stay out of it, to avoid risks both to her own safety and to their still-new status in the village. Both her professional instincts and her sense of justice draw her in, though, and Hugh also can't remain opposed. Too many things don't add up, and Berdie, with her friend Lillie in tow, keeps digging. When they discover that Miriam Livingston is someone other than whom the village has always believed her to be, things start to spiral out of control and the dangers to Berdie that had worried Hugh from the beginning begin to materialize.
This is a really engaging "cozy" mystery, with likable and interesting characters. I hope we'll be seeing more of Berdie and her friends and neighbors.
Recommended.

Note:: I received a free electronic galley from the publisher via NetGalley
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Picked this up to add to my stacks and wound up reading right away!

Berdie Elliott and her husband, Hugh, have recently moved to the small English village of Aiden Kirkwood. Hugh is the new parish priest and, naturally, Berdie is the vicar's wife. new life paths for both of them. Hugh retired from military life and went straight to seminary. Berdie has 'retired' from a career of investigative journalism. But old habits can die hard.

It is the Christmas season and all seems to be going smooth, until Miss Livingston is found dead in her cottage. Berdie finds it hard to keep her promise to Hugh to not get involved in solving the mystery. And it doesn't help that Lillie, Berdie's old friend from university days, knows of Berdie's past and how hard it is for Berdie not to interfere with the investigations.

In a style similar to Agatha Christie's Miss Marple series, this nicely paced cozy takes place in a picaresque English village and has a varied cast of characters with their own unique secrets. There are some twists and turns along the way. I found that I was suspicious of one character for quite a bit, then another for a very short while and back to my original. This time I did get it right!

Looking for a quick and enjoyable read, this fills the bill. ( )

This book sounded interesting to me from the jacket blurb. The action is set in a small English village, with the murder of a local matron taking center stage. The characters were interesting and their personalities revealed throughout the book. The plot held together, although seemed to have many strands that made things more complex than necessary. There were two things that annoyed me greatly about this book. One was the many usage errors ("the bells peeled," "the town counsel," "people peaked over their magazines," and so on). A good editor should have caught these. My pencil was busy! The second thing that annoyed me was the use of adjectives or nouns as verbs--this would have been okay if the sentences were finished such as "reminded them" vs "reminded", "compelled (them)" and so on. This made the writing seem amateurish, as if the thesaurus was in frequent use and some of the words did not quite fit. I also found some difficulty in interpreting the meaning of the British terms, many of which seemed contrived. A glossary for this would have helped. ( )

This story introduced Berdie, a one time investigative reporter who has recently moved to a small village with her husband the newly appointed vicar. Berdie has grown children who have flown the nest so I speculate that she is perhaps around fifty years old, but it's unclear. A woman she went to the University with, and who is a great friend fortuitously lives in this village. So when an occasionally very nasty old woman is murdered and these two intrepid characters refuse to believe that a like able young man is the culprit, even though local Constable Goodnight who has the reputation that he couldn't catch a villain in the best of times has already looked up his own choice for the murderer.

The tale is light,enjoyable and well plotted. I am looking forward to the next in the series because I also found the characters worth getting to know. ( )