Right, I’ve got the Review Of The Year to write as well, so let’s be brief about December. So, completely failed the advent calendar challenge I set myself, read ten books, and Christmas happened. Ho ho ho!

Right, ten books. They were:

• The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie – séance, snow, murder, lots of events that are distractions to the plot rather than part of it. Average (at best) Christie
• Death On Tiptoe by R C Ashby – a chilling murder but not exactly a classic.
• Reply Paid by H F Heard – a mis-marketed Sherlock Holmes continuation. Dull.
• Death By Request by Romilly & Katherine John – too long
• The Last Passenger by Will Dean – perfectly fine thriller but you can probably see the twists coming (I did)
• The Queen Of Poisons by Robert Thorogood – ah, that’s better… A proper mystery
• The Mystery Of Treefall Manor by J S Savage – and another one. Excellent
• Catt Out Of The Bag by Clifford Witting – charming and very Christmassy, but the mystery is lacking.
• The Dr Britling Stories by James Ronald – wonderfully written tales, but lacking in the detection.

And the Puzzly goes to… oh, Rob Thorogood’s not going to like this. You see, every single book he’s written has won the Puzzly but this time, he’s only getting half a Puzzly. I’ll leave it to him and J S Savage as to who gets the “Puz” and who gets the “Zly”, but in a month of mostly disappointing reads, these two stood out head and shoulders above the rest.

Right, see you tomorrow for the review of the year.