It’s Christmas Time… and there’s every reason to be afraid.

Twelve years ago, a university group, The Murder Masquerade Society, acted out fictional murder mysteries. But it all ended one Christmas when Karl, their de facto leader, disappeared without trace from inside a locked study. The group drift apart, in particular Charley, who was having a secret relationship with Karl – and was the victim of an attempted murder that very night.

But twelve years later, the group is invited by Ali, Karl’s sister, for a reunion at an isolated Scottish country house. Each have their assigned roles to play in one last game. From the beginning, something seems amiss – Ali, their hostess, is missing and the backgrounds to their assigned characters seem awfully close to reality, including secrets that nobody wanted revealed.

And then the woman assigned the role of Lady Partridge is found hanging from a pear tree…

Well, well, well, I wasn’t expecting that.

I tinker with plots for mystery novels occasionally – they never get very far – but one that I do occasionally come back to is a set of murder based around the Twelve Days Of Christmas carol. Of course, there are only so many serial killer plots you can do, and it’s awfully hard to structure a death around “Eight Maids A-Milking”. Even in a spoof, it’d be pretty dumb.

Anyway, that idea’s off the table now, as Andreina Cordani has done exactly that and done it absolutely brilliantly.

To be fair, she has wisely not gone for all twelve – no maids in sight – and the theme doesn’t dominate proceedings. The narrative is split between present day, with Charley as the point of view, and the events of twelve years ago, giving the reader an insight into each of the other characters, and what they were up to – although never giving the game away. The members of the Masquerade Society, along with two or three extras give a nice array of suspects/cannon fodder and the book does end with a commendably high body count. The rationale behind the killings – and there is one – is a nice slow reveal (although the rationale behind the theme is a little less well defined beyond the killer being what is probably politically incorrect to refer to as “a bit of a nutter”)

All of the tropes are on display here of what is often erroneously referred to as a “locked-room” mystery = snow trapping the party in an isolated house, etc – but I’ve not read one that is this well done that I recall. There’s a clear love of classic mysteries on display here – And Then There Were None, a clear influence, does get a title-check near the end, but it’s by no means the same book.

And I don’t think I’ve read a mystery for a while that is as exciting as this one for a good while either. A real page-turner that I just couldn’t put down, an absolute Christmas cracker of a read, with the Christmas spirit just dripping off the page. A stunning debut adult mystery from Andreina Cordani and I hope there will be many more.

The Twelve Days Of Murder is out this Thursday from Zaffre in hardback and ebook. Many thanks for the review copy via NetGalley.