You might be mistaken for thinking it was December on my blog, given the Christmassy reviews, but October and November are when the Christmassy books come out. Of course, that doesn’t explain why amid this deluge that I’m reviewing a bunch of old ones, but it makes a pleasant distraction from everything that’s going on in the world right now, so forgive me my indulgence.

Eleven books was the tally for October, so let’s take a look at them and see which one gets the Book of the Month…

• Mrs Pargeter’s Patio by Simon Brett – the widow of the ex-gangster discovers a dead body under the patio of the house that he had built for her. As Mrs Pargeter surely wouldn’t have done that, she sets out to find the real killer. A fun read.
• Man Of Two Tribes by Arthur Upfield – apparently not the best place to start with this series. File under “weird”.
• The Marlow Murders by Biba Pearce – my first Christmas title, but the Christmas theme is tangential at best. A decent enough police procedural.
• Who Killed Father Christmas? ed. Martin Edwards – this year’s seasonal collection from the British Library, and one of the stronger collections of short stories.
• Poisoner’s Base by Belton Cobb – one of the stronger titles that I’ve read from Cobb, featuring, to no-one’s surprise, death by poison…
• Swing Away, Climber by Glyn Carr – another murder up a mountain, and in the author’s beloved Snowdonia once again. Another one for the “needs to be reprinted” file.
• The Twelve Deaths Of Christmas by Marian Babson – a boarding house prepares for Christmas Dinner while one of them slowly goes mad and goes on a killing spree. A fun read but suffers from the killer being seemingly picked at random.
• The Twelve Days Of Murder by Andreina Cordani – in which the song is used as the theme for some murders and it’s written with a straight face. And it works!
• The Christmas Appeal by Janice Hallett – fun, but not a patch on The Appeal, with a very disappointing mystery.
• Murder At Everham Hall by Benedict Brown – a really pleasant surprise – an entertaining cosy with a proper mystery in it! And very festive too…
• Murder Among Friends by Lange Lewis – a death at a medical school leads to suspicion among… well, some friends. A well-told tale with some dark themes.

And the book of the month goes to… well, there are a few possibilities. Murder At Everham Hall was a really fun read, and Murder Among Friends really made me think. But for sheer fun, as well as having the nerve to hang Lady Partridge from a pear tree, it has to go to Andreina Cordani for The Twelve Days of Murder. Gripping from start to finish, a really fresh feeling mystery novel. So why not give it a try?

Next month, there’s more Christmas to come, I’m afraid. Who knows, I might even finally get round to reading Mystery In White…