A Christmas Legacy

At the start of bestseller Perry’s slight 19th Christmas mystery (after 2020’s A Christmas Resolution), Gracie Tellman, a former servant to the author’s best-known leads, Thomas and Charlotte Pitt, gets an unexpected visitor, Millie Foster. Millie, the teenage daughter of a woman Gracie and her London police inspector husband once cleared of a false charge of theft, has recently joined the household of the Harcourt family as a maid, but she’s disturbed by a recent development. Some of the family’s best food has begun to disappear, but none of the other staff acknowledges the apparent pilfering. Millie fears the thefts will come to the attention of her mistress, imperiling all the servants’ jobs. Gracie agrees to help by telling Mr. and Mrs. Harcourt that Millie’s taken ill and offering to fill in for her until her recovery. They accept her offer, giving Millie an opportunity to probe the puzzle of the missing food from the inside. The explanation is less than dramatic and sets up an ending not every reader will credit. This is strictly for devoted fans of Perry’s various Pitt series. Agent: Donald Maass, Donald Maass Literary. (Nov.)