“When Clio – a former actress and current struggling private detective – manages to score a key role in the town’s Christmas pantomime, she’s secretly delighted. At last, perhaps, her talents will be recognized?

It’s all going dramatically well, until their esteemed director is found murdered on the opening night. And Clio knows it’s up to her to find out who the mistletoe murderer is.

She knows her best chance of capturing the culprit is to bring her best friends Amber and Jeanie into the cast. Even if the best way to sneak them in is to carefully conceal them both in a pantomime cow costume.

But before she can cry ‘he’s behind you’, all of them will be in danger for their lives, as there’s a murderer with only one thing on their mind… to bring the curtain down on the Mistletoe Murder Club. Forever.”

Once in a while, I struggle with writing my own blurb for the book I’m reviewing so I’ve pinched the one-off Amazon for this. I didn’t embolden (is that the word) some of the text – not sure why the names needed to be in bold. But I’m struggling to say much about this “BRAND-NEW screamingly funny festive mystery” so I’ll make it easy on myself by using the official blurb.

And when I say I’m struggling to say much about the book, it’s not because it’s bad. It’s not bad. It’s not desperately good either (unless you’re one of the reviewers on Amazon who gave it 4.2/5) – it’s just achingly average. Oh, and it ticks quite a few boxes on the Cozy Bingo Card. So yes, the murderer has to be trapped rather than deduced – oh, actually, that’s not quite true, but it is almost the case.

What really bothers me is how cynical the title is. It’s actually the fourth book in the Bad Girls Detective Agency series, but it seems to be titled entirely to jump onto the Fill-In-The-Blank Murder Club genre. There’s some dialogue concerning how, because they haven’t been hired to solve the crime, they should change their name for absolutely no reason other than to justify the cover. As I said, cynical.

Sorry, I just didn’t get on with this one. Despite being set at the panto, I never felt it was particularly Christmassy. And, not wishing to be blunt, and I know that humour is relative, but “screamingly funny” my arse.

I’m not sure who the target audience is – I guess if you’ve read the first three, you’ll probably like this – but it’s not going to crack my top ten Christmas mystery list. Not even close.