It’s Mallory Atkinson’s first Christmas in Scotland. Victorian Scotland, that is. Also, as the twenty-first-century detective learns, Christmas really isn’t a thing in Victorian Scotland. It’s all about Hogmanay. But her boss, Dr. Duncan Gray, treats her to an early gift of tickets to the event of the season: a Charles Dickens reading. There, they bump into Lady Inglis—the lovely widow who has sent Gray sexy letters trying to entice him back to her bed.

Lady Inglis introduces Mallory to Dickens—the meeting of a lifetime—but in return she wants their help. She’s being blackmailed. Someone stole letters she wrote to another lover and is threatening to publish them.

Mallory isn’t sure what to make of Lady Inglis, but no woman deserves that, so she insists on taking the case with or without Gray’s help. Growing tension between them soon tells Mallory that Gray is hiding a secret of his own. She has until Hogmanay to uncover the blackmailer…and, hopefully, to put things right with Gray so they can enjoy the holiday together.

Our twenty-first century detective, Mallory, having made the decision to stay in 1869 Scotland is ready for her first Christmas in the Victorian era. However it seems Scotland is not big on Christmas but instead celebrates Hogmanay with much of the same trappings. Gray gives Mallory a pre-Hogmanay gift, a chance to accompany him, his widowed sister Isla and their friend Detective McCreadie to a reading by Charles Dickens. As if that was not exciting enough they run into a former lover of Gray’s who asks them for help as she is being blackmailed.

This novella takes place after the events of book three which saw Mallory make the firm decision to remain in the past with Gray.  The case Mallory and Gray investigate for once does not include a murder but we do see tidbits of Victorian life that may surprise some, such as the existence of written pornography aimed at the genteel Victorian woman and the seemingly common habit of upper class widows to take lovers. Since it is a novella we don’t really learn much about any of the regular character’s past and the culprit was only semi-obvious in retrospect; though, with her knowledge of Dickens’ impending  death, we do see how Mallory has to tread carefully about things she knows but can’t really reveal.  Overall it is a wonderful glimpse into the lives of Gray, Mallory, et al. I look forward to the next book in the series. Highly recommended. ~~ Stephanie L Bannon

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