HARD CHRISTMAS: A Cat Marsala Mystery. [Paperback]

Barbara. D'Amato (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback
• Publisher: New York: Scribner (1995). (1995)
• ASIN: B001KAN6AU
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Parrot-owning journalist hunts murderer in the Christmas trees, August 14, 2008

By 

John S. Geary (Vancouver, B.C., Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hard Christmas (A Cat Marsala mystery) (Paperback)

This book has much to do with Christmas and Thanksgiving, but very little to do with parrots, even though there is a parrot in the story (those who've read my other reviews know what THAT'S about!).

It is a mystery story and a parrot is included in the story - but the story does not revolve around the parrot. And no, the book is NOT about Yours Truly, even though I am a parrot-owning journalist.

However, because the protagonist - Cat Marsala - is a freelance journalist (like me) and she has an African grey parrot (like me) named L.J. (short for Long John Silver), I had to buy this. While the book's title is "Hard Christmas," it is actually one of those rare mysteries that could be classified as a "Thanksgiving mystery" since most of the action takes place over the Thanksgiving weekend, with the exception of the first and last chapters, the latter fast forwarding to Christmas Eve. (I'm referring to American Thanksgiving, celebrated the last Thursday of November, not the Canadian Thanksgiving, which is the Monday following the second full weekend of October).

Chicago journalist Cat and her parrot L.J. show up Thanksgiving Day at a family Christmas tree operation, as she is working on a feature story about the Christmas tree industry. The foreman of the operation turns up dead - fed through the tree baler - the Saturday after Thanksgiving and Cat finds herself pulled into a family feud of murderous proportions.

It's a good pre-Christmas/pre-Thanksgiving murder mystery, a cross in styles between the cozy and soft-boiled sub-genres. It's similar to classics like "And Then There Were None," "Murder on the Orient Express" and "The Mousetrap," in that the murder takes place in a confined locale (in this case, the family farm) where only a few people could, or would have reason to, commit murder, although the reasons are often hidden and the murderer often the last person you'd suspect.

Of course, the sleuth - in this case, Cat - has a very limited time frame in which to solve the case. It's well written from the standpoint that a good case can be made for any of several suspects being the actual murderer. However, there is one little bit of information left out that has a bearing on discovering the murderer's motive revealed only at the end, which I think is a bit of a cheat in this kind of story.

Although we are allowed to see the inner thoughts of the third-person narrator (Cat), some thoughts she reveals at the end were not supplied to us - even though we know she observed certain facts that could lead to those thoughts, we are never given access to those thoughts until she tells all at the end. For shame, Barbara D'Amato!

Parrot lovers will certainly relate to the few scenes involving interactions between Cat and L.J. ... For example, the passage, "Long John Silver was ecstatic to be home, but he expressed it with his usual ill temper at having had to put up with adversity. He bit my ear lobe and then flew up and sat all night on the curtain rod, where I can't reach him without getting on a chair. And if I get up on the chair, he always flies to the other curtain rod. I know better than to get involved in his games."

I certainly disagree with her description of African greys, however: " ... like all African grays (sp) he is an ugly gunmetal color ... " I guess Ms. D'Amato has never known the love of an African grey parrot.

Its flaws aside, it is still an enjoyable read if you like mysteries, especially "holiday mysteries" and even more so if you, like me, are always on the lookout for mystery stories with parrots in them.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pineing away in Michigan, November 30, 2004

By 

David A. Spearman (Harbor Beach, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hard Christmas (A Cat Marsala mystery) (Paperback)

What a great story. Extremely interesting to me was the deep coverage on the raising of the Christmas trees. I am a resident and with her research on our great state must make her a honorary Michigander. The mystery side was ok but not real hard to figure out. In my opinion fiction is what is defined as anything can be accepted. From that standpoint I enjoyed the book tremendously.