A Fatal Winter: Max Tudor, Book 2

I loved this book for so many reasons. I believe Malliet must be the reincarnation of Agatha Christie and some popular present day satirist/ comedian. Max Tutor is a handsome Anglican priest who used to be a MI-5 agent. His church is located in the small English village of Nether Monkslip, with all the foibles and characters one would expect to inhabit such a village. But Malliet has updated their thoughts and actions to fit expertly into the twenty-first century.

Max is a combination of Hercule Poirot, Father Brown, and Sherlock Holmes. As an Anglican Priest, his life is further complicated by his 'love interest', the beautiful spiritualist and town's herbalist. He is also haunted by the death of his MI-5 partner who had taken Max's place in their last mission together, where Paul was killed.

This second in the Father Max Tutor series, ( Wicked Autumn was book one) finds Max being asked to go to an English Manor house to 'observe' the remaining family gathered there for a Christmas holiday. The Lord of the manor has been murdered, just before his twin sister died of natural causes. Of course the family is full of 'characters' that have many idiosyncrasies of their own. The interactions between these characters is written wonderfully, with stereotypes and additional characteristics that were a feast for this reader!! AND---the mystery was wonderfully done also. Never guessed till the end, but the clues had been placed expertly throughout the book !

I had read book one and enjoyed it very much, but book two was exponentially better. So looking forward to reading Malliet's take on spring and summer with Father Max and more mysteries!!

The first Max Tudor book, A Wicked Autumn, was really captivating, interesting and had
interesting characters who were complex and developed. Max himself was somewhat introspective and also interesting. This book, the second, was superficial, has stereotypical characters who were not appealing and about whom this reader didn't care.
It is hard to believe this second book was written by the same author, they are that different in quality.

No, but it may make me hesitate to buy another by this author.

OK.

It was boring, and I lost interest.

Read the first one, Wicked Autumn, and give this one a pass.

My first G.M. Malliet read, and now I don't remember much about it- ergo- must not have been too great.

Probably not--though it was quite good.

Although the characters were initially a little difficult to keep straight, ultimately I felt they were all so well drawn that each was an interesting person in his/her own way, and each equally suspect for the murders. Max Tudor is a new kind of hero, a priest with MI5 background. This makes him able to be empathic with other characters, while having credible (though not known to most of the people around him) sleuthing skills.

I didn't have a favorite--but I was very impressed by the way he made all the voices so distinct from each other--this was a large group of characters. He did wonderfully with even women's voices--which must be a challenge to a male narrator.

Not really--it was too long (but I liked that it was long, because I could have that much more time to enjoy it)--and this was a book that kept moving with challenges to the reader trying to predict who committed the crimes.

I thought the "solution" was very clever, and unexpected. I liked that there were other background things going on that worked well to flesh out the characters and atmosphere, without seeming as though they were "fillers," added just to make the book longer (which I believe happens in some mysteries). Good balance of main story with side stories. I liked this book, and hope there will be more in the series going forward. Felt the narration was excellent!