Cleys, a castle in Wales, is the home of Sir Harry Stacey and his wife, Undine, and they’re having a house party with friends and family, despite knowing full well what always happens in a house party in a Golden Age detective novel. Between the various guests, there are romances, both successful and otherwise, and a good selection of dark secrets to be guessed at. And then someone suggests turning all the lights out and having a game of hide and seek…

When Undine’s body is found, locked in the heavy trunk she had chosen for her hiding place, Lionel West, a friend of Harry’s and a guest at the party, is drawn into the investigation with the local constabulary. As ever, they have their eyes on a certain suspect or two, but Lionel is not convinced…

A brief explanation first of all. This is the first book from my Coffee & Crime Advent Calendar, my little December treat to myself. Twelve mysterious crime novels, beautifully packaged, along with some chocolates and other assortments, courtesy of Kate’s business. They do subscriptions as well, there’s still time for that Christmas present… possibly. Anyway, in the past, I’ve been a bit lax with these reading one or two and consigning the rest to Mount TBR, so I decided this year, as I’m trying to stop stockpiling books, to challenge myself to read the twelve books throughout December. Let’s see how that goes, but I’m off to a good start.

And the book’s an interesting one. I’m not familiar with R C Ashby, or Ruby Ferguson, but she wrote in a variety of genres, with apparently eight mystery novels being amongst her output, of which this is the fourth. The set-up is good, with an effectively simple murder method, and the characters for the most part are nicely distinctive. There’s some nice atmosphere and she writes really well. There’s some somewhat obvious misdirection that goes on a bit towards the end – no, he’s obviously not the killer, yes, it’s obvious why he confessed, yes, I can see where this is going, please hurry – and the clueing is not what it could be. Yes there may have been a mention of the fact that pins down the who to West, but it’s both a bit obscure for the reader and a bit obvious for the police to overlook, I thought. And it gets a little silly towards the end, with the motive really coming out of nowhere.

All in all though, an interesting read and a good start to my Advent Calendar. Let’s hope things get even better and better (he said ironically having already finished Day 3’s book…)

If you want to read this one, good luck, even this paperback reprint is going for £80+ in its cheapest appearance on the internet. So the Advent Calendar has already paid for itself…