Death Doesn't Take a Holiday

A CHRISTMAS BEGINNING

By Anne Perry

Ballantine. 190 pp. $17.95

For those unfamiliar with this author, Anne Perry has written nearly 60 books, mostly detective fiction, mostly set in either Victorian England or the bleaker England of World War I. These works make up elaborate, convoluted worlds where characters appear and reappear. They include Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, an amnesiac police investigator named Monk, Monk's subordinate, Runcorn, and so on. Perry's Web site invites the reader into an imaginary parallel universe full of people, places and things that are -- because they are from a different time -- tantalizingly out of our reach. She includes old-time recipes such as "bread and butter pickles" and tells us the origin of that condiment's name: Victorian children used to be given slices of bread fried in drippings topped by a pickle.

Despite the plethora of crime, then, this world seems wholesome and domestic, but it would be misleading to fail to mention that around 1994, after the movie "Heavenly Creatures" was released, it came to light that "Anne Perry" is a pseudonym for Juliet Hulme, who had been convicted in her teens of committing an exceptionally brutal murder.

All of which endows her harmless-seeming narratives with a suddenly unnerving credibility. At first, "A Christmas Beginning," another Victorian tale, seems low-key, inviting, comforting holiday fare. (As indeed it is.) Runcorn, that former subordinate of Monk who has been promoted past him to be a senior superintendent in London's Metropolitan Police Department, has decided to take an extended Christmas vacation on the Isle of Anglesey in Wales. He's residing in a rooming house in this austere, freezing-cold town, and he's come here all alone. "He knew many people, but they were colleagues rather than friends." Runcorn is terribly isolated, having been promoted out of his social class: "He was not a gentleman, like those of his own rank. He had not the polish, the confidence, the ease of speech and grace of movement that comes with not having to care what people thought of you." He's 50 and has never been married. He has come to this remote island to think deeply about himself and what he might expect of the rest of his life.

But as happens to literary detectives everywhere, he can't take one step without running into yet another gruesome murder. Runcorn does nothing more than attend a Sunday service at the local church when he finds himself bemused by a drama-in-the-making. The vicar gives a dull sermon. From the front pew he is watched not only by his devoted, middle-aged wife but also by his younger sister, a raving beauty, who, Runcorn will discover during after-service small talk, is Olivia Costain, object of the importunate affections of at least two men: Mr. Barclay and Mr. Newbridge. Their unreasonable lust is apparent even on this cold Sunday morning.

Runcorn notices all this (after all, that's his training and his profession), but he's also distracted by a strange coincidence: Barclay and his widowed sister, Melisande, have rented a house on this island for the winter, and long ago, back in London, Melisande had courageously taken the witness stand in another criminal trial with which Runcorn was connected, much to Barclay's disgust.

This being the Victorian Age, there's not much to do on this icy island but eat heavy meals and take long walks, and Runcorn does just that -- for a few days. He's brusquely warned by Barclay not to reveal his profession or his earlier involvement with Melisande. Barclay is trying to marry his sister off again to a man of good family, and he doesn't want her reputation to be tarnished in any way. He senses Runcorn's nascent tender feelings for her, and brutally reminds the good policeman of the abyss between their respective social classes.

Something has to happen, and one freezing morning Runcorn, taking a walk at dawn through the churchyard, finds the blood-drenched body of Olivia Costain, the vicar's sister, draped over a tombstone. She's been viciously stabbed, from the front, by someone she obviously knew. But -- as Barclay and several other characters take pains to remind Runcorn -- this isn't London, full of lowlifes who might stab each other as a lark; this is a lovely little village full of wholesome folk who know each other. Surely the murderer is a madman from somewhere else. The head constable is brought in to investigate. But the constable is clueless, figuratively and literally.

Out of this narrative, a question arises: What about those "gentle" women who couldn't or wouldn't get married in the Victorian Age? They were usually doomed either to become governesses (like Jane Eyre) or hang around the houses of their father or brothers, subsisting on a penurious allowance. Both Melisande and Olivia had such an arrangement, living off their brothers, constituting a considerable financial burden. Melisande is evidently willing to marry again, but it's probable that Olivia didn't want to be bothered and lost her life because of it.

One wishes that the author had taken up the matter of money and the financial helplessness of women in a little more detail. Women couldn't inherit money and neither could they earn it; therefore they were kept under the sway of their male relatives. As Runcorn -- in the most formulaic way -- questions suspects and observers, and as the murderer is brought to justice and the expected happy ending rolls around, the reader is left thinking: Well, that's all very nice, but how is the happy couple going to live?