The Next Dark Age
We're in it Now
A Christmas Secret, by Anne Perry
Book 56 of 50 Book Challenge; Book 1 of 2011 Holiday Challenges
I’ve never read Anne Perry before, but it looked like a perfectly reasonable holiday murder mystery to me.
New pastor and wife go to small town to sub for the local vicar over the holidays. They settle in with your usual small town quirky characters when one day the wife goes to the cellar for some coal and finds the dead vicar.
I am happy to say that I found the characters to be very pleasant on the whole. This is important because there is not one single surprising detail in the whole of the novel. Except, perhaps, how quickly our heroes solve the mystery.
I did enjoy the pastor and wife telling each other, “We won’t trust anyone while we do our investigating” and they both go out and spill their guts to different people. That was fun.
Also, there were a dog and cat that were very important to the discovery of the body that barely set foot on the canvas again for the rest of the story. Even during the high tension of unveiling the killer, they are nowhere to be found. That’s just not fair.
I have long said that I am not a big mystery reader. So if I can guess the killer, something is wrong. I totally guessed the killer. And I guessed it early. So I guess this was my warm-up book.
The Next Dark Age 
I just reviewed this book on my website for the Christmas Reading Challenge. I enjoyed it, but I took it from the first as a light-hearted mystery, so I wasn't expecting a whole lot!I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it more, but happy you're doing the Christmas reading challenge!
I have several of Perry's Christmas books. Not sure if this is one of them. Sounds like a good one though.