Every year I hope to have time around the holidays to settle in to a fun cozy mystery, drink hot cocoa by the fire and get totally absorbed in the story. Most years, this doesn't happen. This year, it took a whopper of a head cold to plant my seat in the sofa. This was exactly the type of book I was looking for. Well-plotted with a fine cast of potential suspects, engaging characters and lots of cookies and hot cocoa along the way. In fact, I had to stop a few times to get tea, cookies, etc.

I look forward to getting into the rest of the series and I won't wait until next December! ( )

I am so grateful to a Facebook post that I read several months ago advising that the website "Fantastic Fiction" https://www.fantasticfiction.com/d/vicki-delany/ is a great way to search for an author's name to view the books they've written and if the author has written novels using a pseudonym(s). One of my favorite series is "A Lighthouse Library Mystery Series" and until I looked up the name of Eva Gates I had no idea it is the pen name used by Vicki Delany or that she writes in the genres of mysteries and historical mysteries in addition to her cozies.

Merry Wilkinson and her family live in Rudolph, New York, and I loved reading about the family and the town. I couldn't imagine Merry's horror when the float she worked so hard on for the Christmas parade was stalled from any movement at the start of the Christmas parade. But that's just the opening as mischief continues and escalates to frightening incidents. I was turning pages as quickly as I could read all the while trying to read carefully to see if I could put the clues together and solve the case.

For the time I was reading the novel I felt the joy of the season and I'm looking forward to reading more novels in the series. For all those who have read the "Christmas Tree Farm Mystery Series" by Jacqueline Frost and live on the East Coast wouldn't it be fun to imagine a bus trip with the first stop in Rudolph, New York, and then going on to Mistletoe, Maine. Since they're both fictional towns, we'll each snuggle in our favorite place to read and shout to be heard above the rooftops, "All aboard the reading train!" ( )

Merry Wilkinson owns a Christmas-themed gift shop and lives in Rudolph, New York, also known as Christmas Town. It's getting close to Christmas itself, and she's got her float ready for the Christmas parade. She's also convinced she's going to win this year...at least until mechanical difficulties disqualify her from the parade - it seems by the time she finally was able to get her float up and running, it was after Santa Claus's float, and that's a big no-no here; so, disqualification. Her best friend Vicky, who owns a bakery, won - which isn't a surprise, since she usually wins anyway.

Also there this year is a reporter, Nigel Pearce, who works for World Journey magazine is there to do a story on their little town. While he's in Merry's shop, it seemed he's more interested in her employee Jackie than he is in the shop itself - although he hides it with a series of shots of Jackie around the merchandise. Later that evening there's a party in which Vicky bakes a special set of gingerbread men for Mr. Pearce. And later on after that, Merry is walking her puppy in the park and finds the body of Mr. Pearce.

When it's discovered that he's been poisoned, and the culprit seems to be a gingerbread cookie, the natural suspect is Vicky. But Merry is convinced her friend isn't guilty, and knows there has to be a better explanation, and another guilty party. But can she - and the police - figure it out before Vicky's finally cooked herself and behind bars?

A series centered around Christmas? What could be better? Well, this book apparently. I should have known in the beginning when her float was disqualified for coming after Santa. Really? It was minor at best, and I doubt if the visitors to their town would have been horrified by that fact. Yes, traditionally Santa is last, but honestly, disqualified?

I felt that there were so many things that didn't make sense to me - more than did. For one, children don't take singing lessons - their voices will change by the time they're teens, so there's no point in it. She also surrounds herself with unlikable people: Jackie, who's completely narcissistic - thinking only of herself and what she can get out of men - and Vicky, who's a gloating nag. She gloats when she wins a trophy, (a true friend wouldn't, she'd go to bat and insist the float not be disqualified), then nags her about what she eats. She berates Merry for eating poached eggs, hashbrowns, sausage and toast for breakfast! Gasp! She'll clog her arteries with fried eggs - except poached eggs aren't fried. They're poached. Cooked in water, no grease added. Hardly artery-clogging food. Then practically the next sense Vicky says as how she's making pastries and bread pudding with maple syrup - which everyone knows is soooo good for you and low-fat, right? I think she just disdains any food she doesn't serve at her bakery, but that's just my opinion. (Besides, doesn't Vicky, as the best friend, know what Merry eats? And still berates her?)

Merry is also a bit of a hypocrite. She mentions how she and her family believe that gifts are for children only, yet she sells gifts for adults to give to other adults. Uh-huh. Shouldn't she only be carrying toys, if that's her belief? (For the record, gift giving to others doesn't stop at eighteen. It's a way to show you care about another human, regardless the age). Practice what you preach and all that.

Not to mention she acts like she's a teenager herself - fending off two would-be suitors without really saying so. How old is she, anyway? I certainly hope this series isn't going to turn into a love triangle. As I've said before, I absolutely abhor them. Put it this way: If it were a man who was seeing two women, you'd probably think he was a dirtbag of sorts. Yet for some odd reason, it seems to be perfectly fine when a woman strings along two men. Strange. She also never says why she does or doesn't want to date anyone. I never got the feeling there was any attraction to either one of them (maybe on their part, but definitely not on hers). No connection of any kind.

And at the end, I felt that the reason the murderer did everything was rather convoluted. It didn't really make any sense to me, since it wasn't really connected in any way; and Merry didn't really do any investigating. Everything just rather fell into her lap. I usually try to give a pass on the first in a new series, and in this instance I am hoping that it will improve. ( )

Rudolf, New York, is America's Christmas town. Christmas is celebrated year-round but the festivities really take off in December with the lead up to Christmas proper. The Santa Claus parade kicks things off with the town's various shop owners competing for the best float. Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs. Claus's Treasures, thinks she's a sure to win this year until she discovers the tractor pulling her float is sabotaged and her float is disqualified from the competition. Chalking it up to a mean prank, Merry puts her bad luck out of her mind until she stumbles across the body of an out of town reporter while taking a late night walk. There's a Scrooge in Christmastown! The police think the reporter was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie specially made by Merry's friend Vicky. With the police investigation going no where Merry takes matters into her own hands determined to clear her friend's name and bring the spirit of Christmas back before events scare off all the tourists.

Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen is the first in A Year-Round Christmas Mystery series by Vicki Delany. This was a great little cozy mystery. It was especially nice to read about all the Christmas festivities as we head into the holiday in the real world too. The author had a lot of fun with some of her character's names, making them fit with the holiday theme. Merry is a likable protagonist. Her shop sits in the middle of Main Street so its easy for her to keep on top of everything going on and yet manages to make her concern feel natural instead of just being a nosy neighbor. Some of the descriptions of her shop make me wish I could visit it in real life.

The mystery moves at a good pace. Strange events continue to happen, each one seemingly disparate from the others until there are just too many for it to be mere coincidence. My guesses about the murderer were completely wrong to the very end.

This is a promising start to a series. I think I'll pick up the next book and see how things go for Merry and the residents of Rudolph in the future. ( )

Welcome to Christmas in Rudolph, New York! It's exactly what you would imagine a Christmas in the North Pole to be. The streets are alive with Christmas spirit, with Santa strolling down the street, gingerbread baking at the bakery and friendly people everywhere. Well that is what Christmas in Rudolph is supposed to be like, but this year there is a little murder on the menu as well!

I love Christmastime. I live in Canada, and the snow is falling, the stores are festively decorated, and it's the perfect time to cozy up with a warm cup of tea and a good book (a cozy mystery, of course!). With my love of the holiday season, it's no great surprise that I love to read Christmas-themed books during the holidays. With Vicki Delany's release of her Year-Round Christmas Mysteries, it's the perfect time of the year to catch up on this great new series.

Vicki Delany sets the perfect scene of the idyllic small town, where their business is centred around Christmas. The streets are packed with tourists, and it seems like it's going to be another perfect holiday season. That is until a murderer strikes, and panic amongst the residents starts to set in. For the residents of Rudolph, Christmas is everything, and Merry and her friends must try to solve this mystery, before they have no customers at all.

From the start to the end, I cherished Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen. It is the perfect Christmastime cozy mystery, with just the right balance between mystery and holiday spirit. I liked the sleuth, Merry, a lot. Her family is big on Christmas spirit, with her dad, Noel, playing Santa every year. Of course with a name like Merry, she loves it too!! Together with her friend, Vicky, they set about to solve the mystery - even travelling to one town over to see if they are involved in the murder somehow.

There is so much to love in the town of Rudolph, including Merry's Saint Bernard pup, Matterhorn, and I'm already eager to take another trip there to see what kind of mischief Merry, her family and friends will be up to next.

If you are looking for a great mystery, filled with holiday spirit, this season, pick up Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen. You won't be disappointed! ( )