Christmas Murder, Railway Profits, and Other Yuletide Concerns

A Cozy Edwardian Mystery of Love and Murder

Christmas at the Albion Grand is meant to sell railway shares and hot punch, not watch Father Christmas lie very still at the bottom of the stairs while the staff Christmas fund quietly fails to add up.

Miss Agnes Trelawney, temporary governess and full time collector of inconvenient details, was only hired to keep Jasper Melbury’s children from alarming the shareholders. Instead she notices an over polished bannister, a missing seventy eight pounds six shillings, and a dead accounts clerk who had been asking the wrong people the right questions. When the company sends Hugh Ashcombe, its special troubles inspector, to smooth things over, he expects a tragic accident and a tidy cover story. What he finds is a governess who refuses to forget what she has seen, staff who have been saving in good faith, and a lobby full of witnesses who saw far too much and somehow nothing at all.

As snow piles up outside and pressure builds inside, Agnes and Hugh must decide whether to protect reputations or the people whose shillings have vanished, while trying not to ruin three children, a hotel, or their own unexpectedly entangled futures. Perfect for readers who love cozy historical Christmas mysteries, grand hotels, dry corporate scandal, and slow burn partnerships that stay firmly closed door but emotionally satisfying. Expect a clue rich, fair play mystery with non gory peril, sharp, darkly comic humour, and a closed door slow burn romance with a happy for now ending that leaves both profits and feelings inconveniently rearranged.

If you like your festive reading warm, witty, and just morally furious enough to count as self care, start this one now.