The Christmas Crimes at Puzzel Manor

The plot is sort of sub Agatha Christie – the basic premise being a mixed bag of unlikely individuals unexpectedly cut off in a snowbound country hotel over Christmas. The last of the guests to arrive are Jack Tarrant, a policeman who has had to be invalided out of the service following an injury, and his glamorous girlfriend. And so the stage is set for the most improbable set of events you can imagine. All the way through Tarrant is set a serious of puzzles by his murderous unseen adversary, and the real appeal of the book is in these puzzles. At the end of each chapter, you can pit your wits against the murderer too. The Pictlets enjoyed these puzzles, although some were ridiculously tortuous, but you can always check at the end of the next chapter to see if you got it right.

The puzzles are fun, but the story itself is downright ludicrous, best viewed just as a frame for the puzzles rather than as a book in its own right. The murder has clues hidden in all sorts of improbable places – how can he possibly know that Tarrant is going to pick up that particular hymn book? So best not to dwell on that side of things. It was a fun read over December (and beyond, our bedtime stories do tend to go on a bit these days) and good to see Boy Wonder and Super Girl working together on the puzzles.