Product Description

Murder is combined with a timeless Christmas story in this enchanting installment of the popular mystery series by award-winning author Katherine Hall Page

The Body in the Sleigh

It's Christmastime, and the Fairchild family is spending the holidays on idyllic Sanpere Island in Maine while the Reverend Thomas Fairchild recuperates from surgery. His caterer wife, Faith, is rejoicing in the rare, holiday family-time together—watching ice boaters, snowshoeing, and doing plenty of reading in front of the fire.

But Faith's high spirits are dampened when she discovers the body of a young woman in an antique sleigh in front of the Sanpere Historical Society. The victim, Norah, was a teenage drug addict who apparently died by her own hand. Beloved by many, her untimely death rocks the isolated, tight-knit island community.

Meanwhile, Mary Bethany, a local spinster who raises goats, happens upon a newborn baby boy lying in the manger of her barn on Christmas Eve. The only clues to his identity are a note in the basket asking her to take care of him, as well as an alarming amount of cash. As Faith helps Mary locate the baby's mother, she soon finds that the truth behind the abandonment is connected to Norah's last days—and that, just as death and life are intertwined on Sanpere, so are evil and redemptive goodness.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70055 in Books
• Published on: 2009-11-01
• Released on: 2009-10-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 272 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061474255
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

From Publishers Weekly
In Agatha-winner Page's delightful 18th Faith Fairchild mystery (after 2008's The Body in the Gallery), Faith and her family get away to their cottage on Sanpere Island in Maine's Penobscot Bay for the Christmas season. Tranquility reigns only briefly before Faith finds a young girl's body tucked among the mannequins in a local holiday display. If this wasn't enough to keep Faith busy, she receives a Christmas Eve call from reclusive goat farmer Mary Bethany, who's discovered a babe in her manger—a newborn boy inside her barn, along with a puzzling note and a serious bankroll. When Mary determines to keep the baby safe and Faith attempts to locate the birth mother, both women end up in peril. Amid the holiday festivities, Faith wears the hats of good wife and mother while slipping into her sleuth cap at every opportunity. Her investigative work builds to an exciting conclusion. Faith's kitchen skills result in some wonderful recipes listed at the end. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"A tasty holiday treat." (Iron Mountain Daily News (MI) on The Body in the Sleigh )

"An enjoyable, swift read....Page...gift-wraps everything up with a bow on top." (Bangor Daily News on The Body in the Sleigh )

"Delightful." (Publishers Weekly on The Body in the Sleigh )

"Katherine Hall Page is my favorite writer of the traditional mystery. Not only is The Body in the Sleigh a gripping whodunit, but it's a classic tale of hope." (Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Long Lost )

"Page is adept at mixing charming narrative with page-turning mystery." (BookPage on The Body in the Sleigh )

"The feel-good Christmas theme, pleasant characters and recipes will keep the faithful content." (Kirkus Reviews on The Body in the Sleigh )

"This 18th entry in the addictive series featuring Faith Fairchild, minister's wife and caterer extraordinaire, attests to Page's skill at creating absorbing cozies with likeable, well-rounded characters who feel like old friends." (Mystery Scene on The Body in the Sleigh )

"This charming story, told with humor, warmth and wonderful characters, is a perfect holiday present for cozy mystery fans." (Romantic Times on The Body in the Sleigh )

About the Author

Katherine Hall Page is the author of seventeen previous Faith Fairchild mysteries, the first of which received the Agatha Award for best first mystery, and recently The Body in the Snowdrift was honored with the Agatha Award for best novel of 2006. Page also won an Agatha for her short story "The Would-Be Widower." She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and son.

Customer Reviews

It's holiday time and the Fairchild Family are spending it in Maine.
It's holiday time and the Fairchild Family, Faith, Tom, Ben and Amy are spending it in their summer cottage on Sanpere Island on the coast of Maine. Maine you ask? In the middle of winter? That's just crazy. But, Tom is recuperating from major surgery and the family decides to go to their cottage where he can relax and have a pleasant, quiet recuperation. Still, just like Jessica Fletcher from Murder She Wrote, whenever Faith shows up anywhere, the dead bodies start to pile up. Although, things start out very quietly, family time together, watching ice boaters, snow shoeing in the woods and a lot of reading, things are about to happen.

Faith takes the children to town one morning to take Christmas pictures in front of the Sanpere Historical Society. They had decorated an old sleigh with Christmas packages and a couple of manikins dressed up in antique costumes. But, as Faith is taking the pictures she notices that there are three manikins. And, the third figure turns out to be a dead body. The victim is Norah Taft, a young woman who had lived on Sanpere during the summer months and just recently had come back to live full time with her mother. She was apparently a drug addict and had committed suicide. Many people on the Island remembered her fondly and were very disturbed by her death.

In the meantime, also on the island, a local woman, Mary Bethany, who raises goats comes upon a newborn baby boy in her barn on Christmas Eve. The only indications of his identity are a note asking Mary to raise the baby as well as a lot of cash. Mary asks Faith to help her find the identity of the baby's mother and during their investigation they find that the truth behind the child abandonment is connected somehow to Norah's death.

This book is a page-turner. Ms. Page is wonderful as usual and ties everything up at the end with her usual talent. She is a great story teller and has won about every prize given to Mystery Authors. However, I've read all of her previous books about Faith Fairchild (17) and they all had a certain light-heartedness about them. This book is entirely different. It is much darker but the story is really excellent. The plots jump around a little but, if you read this author's books like I do you don't put it down long enough to get confused. Excellent job, Ms. Page. I'm so relieved you haven't decided to have Faith go after a group of vegetarian vampires. They are really getting old. Thanks for the great read.

Welcoming Old Friends for the Holidays
So nice to see Faith and family here on Sanpere in the winter, though I did miss Pix and their gang. I always delight in Katherine's descriptions of this area of Maine -- my own back yard. Having grown up in NYC, married and started a family outside of Boston. . . I've been "friends" with Faith for sometime time, looking forward to each new book as a special "treat," (figuratively as well as literally -- I've compiled my own recipe box of "Have Faith" concoctions!)

I'm already anxiously awaiting the next "Body In The. . ." book, though I know it will unfortunately mean another murder -- it will also mean new recipes!

exciting Christmas mystery a
Faith Fairchild and her family spend Christmas together at their cottage on Sanpere Island in Penobscot Bay, Maine. At a local store, Faith finds the corpse of a teen named Norah in an antique sleigh. She assumes the young girl died from an overdose as there are no visible marks on the girl, but the police suspect her boyfriend is her killer.

On Christmas Eve goat farmer Mary Bethany calls Faith asking for help. Mary explains she has found a newborn boy with an enigmatic note and $50,000 inside her barn. While her husband the Reverend recovers from gallstone removal surgery, Faith searches for the biological mother. She locates college student Miriam whose boyfriend is a dealer. The amateur sleuth and the mom are in trouble from those who want both dead.

This is an exciting Christmas mystery as Faith and her family celebrates the holiday season together by her investigating the homicide and the baby abandonment while her spouse recovers from surgery with good cheer from the brood especially the children. The story line is fast-paced with two underlying messages of the lucrative drug trafficking is everywhere as the economics supersedes the law and the ethics, and the Fairchild family wishing everyone a happy holiday season with recipes and good cheer to all.

Harriet Klausner