A house party, a jolly crowd, and a double murder. Everyone called it a blessing that old Granny Condrycke died so peacefully in her sleep at Christmastime, and the whole family agreed to go ahead with the holiday festivities at Graylings, the isolated ancestral mansion on the cliffs overlooking Bay Chaleur. But while the Yule log burned, the bowl of wassail speed cheer and warmth, and the house guests dressed up for a merry mumming parade through the ancient halls, someone was planning a murder. Another murder, that is, since a detective Inspector Madoc Rhys already knows that Granny didn't go gentle into that good night...and before the snowy evening was over, a killer might give Death a second Christmas corpse.