This is an a propulsive mystery with dual time lines that includes a satisfying ending- all  in less than 100 pages. It’s the story of an American art history student Ashley Smith, spending her junior year in London at the Courtauld Institute. Her classmate invites her to spend Christmas at her family’s manor house in the Cotswolds- her dream come true. It seems like the perfect English Christmas in a beautifully decorated house that includes her friend Emma’s brother Adam on whom Ashley develops an immediate crush.  But all is not as cozy as it seems. The police are investigating a murder in the village in which Emma’s brother is a suspect.  And a stranger is lurking in the woods. This is a short, well paced and highly readable book - a perfect Christmas mystery