The Christmas Murder Game

by Alexandra Benedict Narrated by Ana Clements

Overview

Lily Armitage never intended to return to Endgame House-the grand family home where her mother died twenty-one Christmases ago-until she receives a letter from her aunt, asking her to return to take part in an annual tradition: the Christmas Game. The challenge? Solve twelve clues to find twelve keys. The prize? The deeds to the manor house. Lily has no desire to win the house. But her aunt makes one more promise: The clues will also reveal who really killed Lily's mother all those years ago. So for the twelve days of Christmas Lily must stay at Endgame House with her estranged cousins and unravel the riddles that hold the key not just to the family home but to its darkest secrets. However, it soon becomes clear that her cousins all have their own reasons for wanting to win the house-and not all of them are playing fair. As a snowstorm cuts them off from the village, the game turns deadly. Soon Lily realizes she's no longer fighting for an inheritance, but for her life.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"There’s love trapped in this house too, and the word puzzles posed to the family (and anagrams listed in the foreword for readers to solve as they read the book) provide an intriguing and engrossing way to get to that warmth. Just the ticket for next winter." — First Clue

"A perfectly plotted festive mystery." — Susi Holliday, author of The Last Resort

"Curl up by the fire (and lock all the doors) for this Christmas cracker of a book." — C.S. Green, author of Sleep Tight

"Utterly original and breathtakingly intriguing . . . A must-read this Christmas." — Steph Broadribb, author of the Lori Anderson Bounty Hunter series

"The perfect updating of the classic Christmas Country House mystery . . . Fabulous festive fun." — Derek Farrell, author of the Danny Bird Mysteries

"The perfect Christmas read . . . and puzzles galore for both readers and the players of the game." — W.C. Ryan, author of A House of Ghosts

"It’s a snowy Christmas Eve in this fun contemporary British country house mystery...Puzzle-loving readers will enjoy searching for anagrams of the gifts mentioned in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and for the titles of 12 of the author’s favorite country house mysteries embedded in the text." — Publishers Weekly

"Super brainy." — Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus Reviews

2022-07-08
A couturier returns to her late aunt’s home in Yorkshire for one last Christmas reunion that promises more sorrow than joy.

Liliana Armitage-Feathers was always an incorrigible game player. Now that she’d dead, her idea of an appropriate legacy is to hide anagrammatic clues to 12 possible keys to an unknown place where the deeds to Endgame House are hidden in 12 sonnets, each one of which will be made available to her prospective heirs on one of the 12 days of Christmas, with the house to go to the relative who finds the key that unlocks the hiding place. Lily Armitage, a corsetier still grieving her mother, Mariana Armitage, who died under questionable circumstances on Boxing Day 21 years ago, doesn’t want her Aunt Liliana’s house, but she does want to honor her memory. So she agrees to play along with her cousins Tom and Ronnie and Rachel Armitage, whom she rather likes, and Sara Armitage-Feathers, whom she doesn’t much like at all and suspects of murder. As Christmas passes into New Year’s and beyond, the clues and keys mount up. So do the casualties, raising real suspicions whether this will be a holiday-themed remake of And Then There Were None. Never fear; enough suspects will remain at the end to make the big reveal moderately surprising, though the bigger surprise is how many felonies end up attributed to how many perpetrators. Just in case this setup isn’t artificial enough for you, Benedict piles two more games atop the games her characters play: a dozen hidden anagrams of the gifts of the 12 days of Christmas, and a dozen hidden references to earlier Christmas-themed whodunits.

Super brainy in an appropriately superficial way.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940174812840
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	10/04/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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