This is an unusual book as its structure is a collection of short stories which are just about held together by an overarching narrative and some puzzles for the reader to solve. These puzzles sometimes require knowledge of the short story that just preceded it, but in a number of cases reading the story would not be necessary. Solving all the main puzzles will enable you crack the final cipher and find out who murdered Edward Luddenham. Before starting this book, I was intrigued to see what effect the novelty structure would have on the reading experience. But from my comments so far, you can probably tell this effect was not really a positive one. However, let’s start from the beginning…
Synopsis
‘It’s the first anniversary of the mysterious death of Edward Luddenham, found dead at his home on the Yorkshire moors one frosty Christmas Eve. Now nine people gather at his manor house for the reading of the Will. Each has their own motivations for coming: curiosity, duty, unrequited love, desperation, greed. They have been instructed to bring a “festive mystery story” to share. But all you need is a pencil. Safe from the biting cold and the relentless snowfall outside, settle in with your favourite tipple in hand, as the storytelling begins. Though you’ll need to keep your wits about you – for among those present is Edward’s killer… Can you solve the puzzles and unmask the murderer before they strike again?’
Overall Thoughts
The opening section of this book begins well enough. We are introduced to Bracestone house through the eyes of a librarian who was friends with Edward. Through her we can see the egos at play in Edward’s family and social circle. Most of the people who have been invited to the anniversary of Edward’s murder were at the house when he was killed. The information about them is brought to us initially by tactless comments. It makes for a socially awkward situation, but it is useful for the reader. One early surprise for the guests is that one of their party is a private detective that Edward hired prior to his death.
The author has a background in creating and reviewing questions for TV quiz shows such as Pointless and University Challenge, so it is understandable that when it came to writing a mystery, she would want puzzles to be an important factor. Use what you know after all. However, upon reflection I feel the emphasis on puzzles is so great in this work that a lot is sacrificed in the process.
Firstly, the short stories. To begin with I liked the idea that the guests had to bring a story of murder and mystery to the will reading gathering. But whilst the idea sounds creative, the reality is far more random. The majority of the guests all seem to have had an encounter with violent death, which they can all conveniently trot out. Some of these stories are more interesting than others and in isolation work okay. But together they do not. The stories are not connected to one another and there is little commenting made by the listeners. One consequence of this was that this disconnection made it hard to immerse myself in the fictional world. The way the characters share their tales all sound the same, there is little differentiation in their storytelling and given the level of detail they include and the crafted sentences they deploy, I assume they are also all professional narrators in their spare time. The stories feel very artificial and are clearly crafted so a certain puzzle can be included afterwards, and the solving of these puzzles really slows the reading experience down. There were ways they could have sped things up for the reader, such as with some puzzles, which were basically Murdle puzzles, the reader has to draw their own grid. Surely, they could have just included one. In a mystery odd things can happen (just read one of Alice Tilton’s Leonidas Witherall novels) but there needs to be a rationale or reason for the characters doing what they do, as weird as it is. So, I was disappointed that there no convincing reason why Edward should ask his guests to share a mystery story at his will reading. Other than to just fill in time… Things are getting desperate when the housekeeper provides a bonus story about someone dying in a coach bus toilet, as well as one story being told from the mind of Dash, a dachshund belonging to one of the guests.
I have stuck to calling this work a book rather than a novel, as for me it just doesn’t function as a novel. It lacks the unity and connection that a novel should have. The overarching story operates as a poor framing device. We don’t get time to connect with or care about the guests really and because these moments are so short between the guest-told tales, the finale has a lot of ground to cover. It almost feels like the last section has to take on the role of being a full mystery novel, bringing out motives and clues, which should really have been woven into earlier passages.
The difficulty level of the puzzles varies, but on the whole they did make reading a mystery feel like a lot of work. In the end I just read straight through the book and then went back to solve the puzzles, before completing the final cipher. The encrypted message at the end tells you who did the murder and then the book abruptly cuts off, which again I feel is testament to this book not really functioning as a novel. It is like having one of Poirot’s revelation scenes condensed into an impersonal summary paragraph.
In case you do decide to read this book, I thought I should point out that there is a printing error for one of the puzzles. It is for the story, ‘The Man Who Made Lists’ and is called ‘A Question of Connection’. You are supposed to organise a selection of words into five different groups. However, one of the words in this selection, ‘Crow’ does not appear in the lists printed in the answer section at the back of the book. In replacement of the word ‘Crow’ is the word ‘Hobby’. Alas this discrepancy seems to have been missed in the proofread.
Rating: 3/5