Mistletoe and Murder

At Christmas 1935, Daisy and Hazel visit Cambridge, where ancient colleges, snowy courts and family gatherings promise a holiday far removed from Deepdean. A student’s fatal fall at the fictional Maudlin College is dismissed as an accident, but the position of the body and the behaviour of those nearby convince the girls that it was murder. Their inquiry is complicated by the Junior Pinkertons, a rival detective partnership equally determined to solve the case before Christmas Day.

The university setting places inheritance, scholarship and college loyalty within institutions whose traditions exclude as well as protect. Hazel and George Mukherjee recognise forms of prejudice that Daisy and Alexander can overlook, while the detectives’ competition gradually becomes cooperation. The novel combines a festive closed-circle mystery with a wider examination of who is permitted to belong in elite academic spaces and who must continually prove their right to be there.