Murder with All the Trimmings

What to wear: Your favorite holiday outfit: That sweater with the reindeer, those outrageous Christmas earrings, or a festive red and green.

What to drink: Eggnog, if you’re taking a holiday from calorie counting. Mulled cider. White wine.

What to eat: Holiday cookies. Candy canes. Fruitcake. Christmas candy. Sliced turkey and holiday hors d’oeuvres. 

The Questions

(1) Josie waited for the right time to tell her daughter, Amelia, about her unconventional situation: Josie had never married her child’s father, Nate, and he wasn’t dead but in prison. Unfortunately, the right time never came, and Josie had to face her lies and evasions, and the damage they did to her daughter.
When should Josie have told her daughter about her father? When should she have told her child that her parents never married? Is there a right age for a child to learn these facts? A right way to tell her?

(2) Mike insists his ex-girlfriend, Doreen, is not jealous. Josie’s new love invites her to visit his former lover at her shop. Josie suspects that Doreen is jealous, but goes anyway. Was this a good idea?

(3) How do you feel about the holidays? Does Christmas depress you, or do you enjoy it? Are holidays more fun if there are children in the family? What is your ideal Christmas or Hanukkah? Would you spend the holidays with your family or go some place far away – to the beach or the mountains?

(4) Josie’s mother, Jane, wants her daughter to marry a man with a white-collar profession. She does not think Josie’s blue-collar lovers are good choices. Do you agree?

(5) Is Doreen wrong to make her teenager, Heather, work at her store? Would a part-time job give this difficult young woman a sense of responsibility? Is Doreen taking advantage of her daughter by using her as cheap help?

(6) Josie believes that Mike’s daughter, Heather, has a drinking problem. Her father Mike says it’s just a little teenage experiment, and normal for her age. Which one is right?

(7) Josie turns down Mike’s proposal. She feels their marriage cannot work because their  attitudes toward child-rearing differ. Also, the two daughters don’t like each other. Do you believe Josie made the right decision?

(8) Do you think blended families can work?  Is Mike over-optimistic, or is Josie too pessimistic, about their chances of marital success? If they really loved each other, could Josie and Mike make their marriage work?

(9) Was Josie right to refuse to marry Nate when he came back, if only to give their daughter a name? Would their marriage have made a difference in Amelia’s life? Would marrying Nate be a positive step or a negative one?

(10) Josie will not take cash or expensive gifts from Nate, even though she’s in troubled financial circumstances. She believes Nate is giving her drug money. Nate says, “My money spends like any other cash. Do you think those doctors and lawyers make only honest money? All money is dirty.”
Is there such a thing as “dirty” money and “clean” money, or is all cash created equal? Would you have refused Nate’s money?

(11) Josie’s mother thinks Nate can be reformed and says St. Louis has good rehab centers for alcoholism. Do you believe his alcoholism could be controlled?

(12) Amelia loses her father, but discovers her grandfather.  Is Jack Weekler a good influence on the little girl? Do children need grandfathers? Will he be competition for her mother’s love, or is there room for both of them in Amelia’s life?

Murder With All The Trimmings by Elaine Viets
Price: $6.99
Obsidian, an imprint of Penguin
ISBN: 978-0-451-22548-1