"Camberwell Crackers," by Anthony Horowitz, in California Schemin', edited by Art Taylor, Wildside Press, 2020.
This is a very silly story. That's certainly not a demerit as far as I'm concerned. More problematic for some readers might be that the subject is Christmas crackers, a British holiday custom which, like pantomimes, has never really caught on on this side of the pond (south of the Great Lakes at least).
Camberwell Crackers is a long-established family company that manufactures these novelties. It seems a very cheerful place to work. But a man named Osborne was planning to take over the company, and now he has been murdered. The inexperienced Detective Inspector is hoping to make his reputation by solving the crime, but he can't seem to make sense of the clues. And, oh, there are clues...
I think I'll stop there.
Thanks for choosing this one! Such a fun story, and I was glad to include it in the anthology. :-)
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