Silent Night, Deadly Night is a nice addition to Vicki Delany’s entertaining Year-Round Christmas series. It’s our fourth trip to Rudolph, New York, where protagonist Merry Wilkinson runs Mrs. Claus’s Treasures on the town’s main drag, Jingle Bell Lane. Delany briskly sets the scene for the first- or fourth-time visitor, and soon gets to the heart of her narrative involving a reunion of Merry’s mother’s college friends.

Merry’s mother, Aline, a retired opera singer, has invited five of her former besties for the weekend. Their first stop is Merry’s shop, and the clever Delany incisively presents Merry’s mental sketch of their appearances and personalities, my favorite being the woman described “as thin as the branches of the earring tree, struggling to keep her age at bay.” As concise and devastating as they are, these portraits remain good-spirited, and very, very funny.

When one of these five falls ill at the ladies’ potluck and later dies, Merry re-christens them “the quarrelsome quartet,” as all they seem to do is bicker and revisit the old wounds and slights that apparently have festered over the years. As hostess, Aline is stuck in the middle of the hostilities, which includes another attack.

I applaud Delany for keeping her amateur sleuth actually amateur. If she discovers or remembers something, she shares it with the proper authorities right away. That’s not to say that she’s not the one who cracks the case, but it’s a more believable process than the average amateur who relies on her cop squeeze to help her solve things. There’s none of that for feisty Delany. Nosy landlady aside, Merry is very much her own woman.