{"id":44671,"date":"2024-12-24T16:07:45","date_gmt":"2024-12-24T21:07:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=44671"},"modified":"2024-12-24T16:07:45","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T21:07:45","slug":"review-of-a-christmas-visitor-by-anne-perry-read-by-terrence-hardiman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=44671","title":{"rendered":"Review of A Christmas Visitor, by Anne Perry, read by Terrence Hardiman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/christmas_visitor_large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/christmas_visitor_large.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-44673\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/christmas_visitor_large.jpg 250w, https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/christmas_visitor_large-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 250px) 100vw, 250px\" \/><\/a><em>A Christmas Visitor<\/em><\/p>\n<p>by Anne Perry<br \/>\nread by Terrence Hardiman<\/p>\n<p>Blackstone Audio, 2006.  3 hours, 59 minutes.<br \/>\nReview written December 24, 2024, from a library eaudiobook.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, here&#8217;s one last cozy Christmas mystery for this year.  This is the second one written by Anne Perry.  The sleuth in this book is the gentleman Henry Rathbone, a friend of William and Hester Monk from her Victorian mystery series.  He&#8217;s the same main character as in <em>A Christmas Odyssey<\/em>, a book I decided not to review because it&#8217;s not really a cozy mystery, searching the &#8220;dark underbelly&#8221; of London for a friend&#8217;s long lost son, and contains some casual transphobia against the characters found there.<\/p>\n<p>But this book has plenty of coziness and snow-covered landscapes to get you in a Christmas mood.  Henry Rathbone is the title visitor, visiting a family of friends at their estate in the Lake District of England.  But unfortunately, a few weeks before, Judah, the owner of the estate, was found dead after apparently trying to cross icy stepping stones late at night after his son&#8217;s recital.  Judah was a judge, and meanwhile, a man recently freed after years in prison, is accusing Judah of wrongfully imprisoning him in order to buy his estate.<\/p>\n<p>As the family gathers from far-flung corners of the earth, it&#8217;s left to Henry to break the news to Judah&#8217;s siblings, rather than leave it to his widow.  It seems strange that Judah would have gone for that walk late at night, and no one believes the accusation for a moment, so there&#8217;s plenty to investigate, and we get time with the interesting family members at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>I have clearly listened to too many Anne Perry Christmas mysteries this year &#8211; I&#8217;m starting to be annoyed by how they can be weak on actual proof of the crime, and that it&#8217;s just about figuring it out, which is often guesswork.  But still, taking me to Victorian England in the snow at Christmas time is a nice way to honor the holiday.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/anneperry.us\/\">anneperry.us<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/B001J6XDJE\/sonderbooksco-20\" target=\"outside\">Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Find this review on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\">Sonderbooks<\/a> at: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Fiction\/christmas_visitor.html\">www.sonderbooks.com\/Fiction\/christmas_visitor.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer:  I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n<p>What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Christmas Visitor by Anne Perry read by Terrence Hardiman Blackstone Audio, 2006. 3 hours, 59 minutes. Review written December 24, 2024, from a library eaudiobook. Okay, here&#8217;s one last cozy Christmas mystery for this year. This is the second one written by Anne Perry. The sleuth in this book is the gentleman Henry Rathbone, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,48,5,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audiobooks","category-christmas","category-fiction-review","category-mystery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44671"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44675,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44671\/revisions\/44675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}