Envious Casca

"This is a true classic of the golden age, first published in 1941, with the usual country house setting and a festive house party suddenly turned tragic by a murder. Heyer is better known today for her historical and romantic novels, but starting in 1932 she published twelve detective novels that really deserve to be more widely read. It’s also been republished under the title A Christmas Party in case the “envious Casca” quotation from Shakespeare ’s Julius Caesar is off-putting to the contemporary reader. Lots of reasons! Christmas is a convenient and plausible reason for a novelist to gather characters together in one place, including those who don’t like each other very much but feel some kind of duty to be present for the celebrations. The festive season can also escalate existing tensions, or cause hidden secrets to be revealed, which can result in a tragedy. A house party, especially in a rural area, isolates and confines suspects in one place and helpfully limits the scope of a detective’s investigation (a book where theoretically anybody in the world can have done the crime is no fun). Snow, too, is very useful for capturing or concealing footprints; I once made a whole podcast episode about this. The contrast between the “comfort and joy” of the Christmas season and the darkness of a sudden murder is a good impetus for a plot, too. Finally, I think there’s something in the idea that midwinter is a time for gathering around the fire and listening to scary stories — and what could be more scary than realising that there’s a murderer on your Christmas guestlist?"