Christopher Lord (1)

I greatly enjoyed Christopher Lord’s first Dickens Junction mystery, The Christmas Carol Murders. The “Junction” is a fictional town near Astoria, Oregon, dedicated to the spirit of the author after whom it was named.

Simon Alastair is the wealthy, gay, and exquisitely tasteful scion of the founders of the town. He’s also the owner of Pip’s Pages, a bookstore stocked only with books he’s read and can therefore recommend to his customers.

In the second Dickens Junction mystery, The show more Edwin Drood Murders, Simon is a board member of the United States Chapter (Western Sector) of the International Society of Droodists, which is holding its 17th triennial conference in Astoria and Dickens Junction. Droodists are scholars and others devoted to the study of the last, unfinished Dickens novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

So how can two murders and three major thefts occur during the five-day conference of such a group in such a setting? Because this is a cozy mystery, where such things happen. And Simon, of course, needs to find the answer to the question: who did it?

What I most enjoy about the Dickens Junction mysteries are Simon, the openly gay protagonist, and his gay and straight friends. A larger question than the tongue-in-cheek mystery for many readers such as myself is whether Zach Benjamin, voted one of the sexiest male reporters on the planet and Simon’s lover, will move in with him.

In Dickens Junction Christopher Lord has created an entire world I’ve come away from twice now dreaming it might be the real world (despite those unfortunate murders!), a bookstore like Pip’s Pages would remain open forever, and the dinner parties at Simon’s house, Gad’s Hill Place, would go on just as long. show less

First Line: No one was dead: to begin with.

Like everywhere else in the country Dickens Junction, Oregon, was hit hard by the economic crisis. Everyone is hoping that there will be lots of shoppers spending lots of money this Christmas season. Some business owners have already given up and left; others are hanging on by a thread.

The only exception to the rule is Simon Alastair, owner of the bookstore Pip's Pages. His great-grandfather and grandfather were timber barons and built the small show more town of Dickens Junction, basing it on many of the principles found in the writings of Charles Dickens. Although far from being a millionaire, Simon is comfortably well off and able to afford to stock his bookstore with only the titles of books he's read. (He admits that he doesn't much care for contemporary fiction, so don't beat a path to the door of Pip's Pages expecting to find a signed copy of Fifty Shades of Grey.)

The holiday season is a special time of year in Dickens Junction, and Simon ponders three things as he walks over to take part in the annual Christmas tableaux: (1) the stranger who's been visiting all the businesses on the square, (2) the sudden run on Ayn Rand titles in his shop, and (3) Zach, a handsome magazine reporter who's just come to town. The tableaux come to a screeching halt when the stranger is found dead-- hidden underneath a costume right in front of Simon.

Since the killer almost has to be one of Simon's friends and acquaintances, Zach decides to stay and persuades Simon to go around interviewing everyone to see who has an alibi and who doesn't. Simon doesn't need much encouragement: he cares deeply for the town and the people who live there, and he doesn't want harm to come to either. When a second murder occurs, it becomes even more important to find the killer before anyone else dies.

The Christmas Carol Murders is a good, solid beginning to the Dickens Junction mystery series. Simon is an interesting character who seems content to stay in his beloved small town rather than move out to create a life for himself in a city. This behavior has already cost him two long-term relationships, and it's also made him extremely leery of beginning anything with Zach. Simon often trades literary quips with his friend, George, and it's one of the highlights of the book--as are Simon's eccentric methods of running a bookstore.

The rest of Simon's friends and fellow business owners are a fine cast to draw from in future books, but I did find two or three things that blunted my enjoyment of the story. This, for all intents and purposes, is a cozy mystery, but the second murder is so gruesome that I became a bit queasy as I read the scene. (And I do have a strong stomach.) This is so unusual in a genre known for its offstage violence and lack of graphic depictions of blood and gore that it startled me.

The other two things that proved distracting for me both concerned the author's wealth of description. For the first quarter of the book almost every male character has his teeth described in some fashion. (Yes, I kept track.) It made me wonder if there were dentists in the author's family tree. Fortunately the toothsome portraits didn't continue throughout the book.

The other thing that proved distracting for me (and it may very well be a personal quirk of mine) concerned how each character was described when he or she made an appearance: age, build, coloring, detailed clothing inventory, type of makeup, how it was applied (or lack thereof)... it was just too much. Had the BBC's What Not to Wear come to Oregon's version of Cabot Cove? All this did was pull me away from a very good mystery.

Yes indeed, the mystery is a very good one with a surprising reveal at the end, and despite being distracted several times in this first book, I look forward to seeing what happens next in Dickens Junction-- and what happens to the characters living there. show less

Dickens Junction is a town near Astoria, Oregon, dedicated to the spirit of the author after whom it was named. So Bleak House is a popular bed-and-breakfast. Micawber’s Investments went under in the recent financial crisis. The town’s economy at least partly depends upon its appeal to tourists.

Simon Alastair is the somewhat wealthy scion of the founders of the town. He’s also the gay owner of Pip’s Pages, a bookstore stocked only with books he’s read and can therefore recommend to show more his customers. When I learned that his last two partners left him to live in a larger metropolitan area, I could only think what fools they must’ve been. I would’ve remained a Junxonian.

On the day deep in the holiday season when the residents of the town present their annual tableaux in Dickens Square depicting various scenes from A Christmas Carol, two strangers show up. One is Zach Benjamin, a “model-handsome” reporter for Rainbows, a monthly gay and lesbian travel magazine, on an assignment to write a story about the charms of Dickens Junction.

When Simon asks him to stay at his house, Gad’s Hill Place, his friends, the town’s leading citizens, soon wonder if Simon and Zach are lovers. Simon is reluctant, though, to begin a relationship only to have the lure of big-city life end it once again and leave him alone with his hurt.

The other newcomer is the sinister Mervin Roark of Marley Enterprises. He goes about offering extravagant sums of money to all the owners of the Dickens Square commercial properties except Simon. If they should refuse to sell, he hints, Marley Enterprises will ruin them. Simon and his friends can’t help but wonder if somebody wishes to take over the town and destroy it and their quaintly Dickensian way of life.

When, that same day, the murders begin, Zach convinces Simon he must discover who is committing them. Simon knows the townspeople better than the sheriff’s investigator does. He also has the most to lose if the villain in this story bulldozes Dickens Junction and replaces it with something radically different.

I greatly enjoyed reading this cozy mystery pitting “Atlas Shrugged versus A Christmas Carol. Rand versus Dickens. Buyers versus sellers. Community versus selfishness.”

The Christmas Carol Murders is Christopher Lord’s first novel in a series of Dickens Junction mysteries. I’ll rush to read his second. I’d like to return to Dickens Junction as soon as Mr. Lord makes it possible for me to do so. The next witty conversation involving the exquisitely tasteful Simon, Zach, and Simon’s friend George Bascomb will alone be worth the price of admission.

(As originally reviewed on Rainbow Book Reviews. Please visit http://www.rainbowbookreviews.com for other reviews that may be of interest.) show less

i definitely appreciated how chock-full of literary references this book is - i mean, the theme itself is basically dickensian vs randian (ayn rand, that is) philosophy of community and charity. the town itself is set up as an homage to dickens and his ideas of giving back, directly in conflict with rand's virtues of selfishness and her ideas of creators. so that was an interesting tension and exploration. i also kind of liked getting to know the characters in this small town, although my show more favorite character was a visitor, george. i was less interested in the mystery, but that's typical for me and so might not be a reflection of the book, although i didn't feel like simon did much real sleuthing. still, i like the concept, found the characters interesting enough, enjoyed the small town feel, and wouldn't be opposed to reading more in the series. show less