by Alexandra Benedict
SYNOPSIS
THIS CHRISTMAS, A KILLER TAKES FAMILY GAMES TO A MURDEROUS NEW LEVEL.
On 19th of December, renowned puzzle setter, loner and Christmas sceptic Edie O’Sullivan finds a hand-delivered present on her doorstep. Unwrapping it, she finds a jigsaw box and, inside, six jigsaw pieces. When fitted together, the pieces show part of a crime scene – blood-spattered black and white tiles and part of an outlined body. Included in the parcel is a message: ‘Four, maybe more, people will be dead by midnight on Christmas Eve, unless you can put all the pieces together and stop me.’ It’s signed, Rest In Pieces.
Edie contacts her nephew, DI Sean Brand-O’Sullivan, and together they work to solve the clues. But when a man is found near death with a jigsaw piece in his hand, Sean fears that Edie might be in danger and shuts her out of the investigation. As the body count rises, however, Edie knows that only she has the knowledge to put together the killer’s murderous puzzle.
Only by fitting all the pieces together will Edie be able to stop a killer – and finally lay her past to rest.
REVIEW
As a professional crossword setter, Edith is used to creating cryptic puzzles and stumping other people with her brilliant mind. However, when the tables are turned, Edith finds out that it's not so easy to solve a mystery - especially when that mystery involves a murder. After receiving a box containing a jigsaw and a mysterious letter stating that unless she is able to stop the murderer by midnight on Christmas Eve, at least four people will be dead. Shaken and confused, Edith teams up with her nephew Sean (a Police officer), to try and solve the case.
There seems to have been an increase in 'interactive' mystery novels recently and I am loving it. In this story, there are additional puzzles to solve. At the beginning of each chapter there is a jigsaw piece with a letter on it. At the end of the book after collecting each one, you can try and work out the anagram of a singer and Christmas song. There are also anagrams scattered throughout the story based on Charles Dickens book titles and Fleetwood Mac songs. Obviously you don't need to solve these little extras to enjoy the novel but as I am a bit of an armchair detective, I get very excited about any challenges and puzzles that you get to solve as the reader, in addition to trying to solve the mystery in the story itself.
On the surface this is a 'cosy crime' mystery, but I actually felt like the characters and the plot had a lot more depth than other books in this sub-genre that I've read. Using Edith's history and loathing of anything Christmas related gave the story a different feel to what I was expecting. The book was a lot of fun, there were lots of twists and despite being a murder mystery, there was a lot of festive feeling in the story.
Thanks to Anne Cater - @RandomTTours, Alexandra (AK) Benedict - @a.k.benedict and Simon Schuster UK - @simonschusteruk for the opportunity to read and review.
Publisher: Simon Schuster UK Genre: Christmas Crime / Puzzle / Mystery
ISBN: 978-1398525405
Pages: 352pp
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