I was very kindly given an e-ARC of this book via Netgalley and Little, Brown Group UK.

As with pretty much all of the Three Dahlia mysteries, I find that I enjoyed 'A Lively Midwinter Murder', but in a few weeks I'll likely have forgotten all about it. Despite the author continually dropping in clunky sentences into her prose about plot points that happened in previous (just in case you decided to pick up book four on a complete whim without first readings books 1-3), it's an interesting mystery. I didn't guess who had done the murder and there were a lot of much deeper plot lines that were intriguing enough to follow. This is something of a locked-room mystery as they're stuck in this grand Scottish house during a snow storm, and Watson successfully managed to keep things intriguing without having to move the characters around a lot. Personally, I felt there were far too many supporting characters who had little to do with the overall action and weren't at all distinct from each other. I also felt as though there wasn't enough time really spent with the three central women actually solving the crime - another character is far more heavily involved and the answer seems to come to them all of a sudden, rather than through any detective work they might do.

I don't know if I'll pick up another one of these books, it's been a string of three stars for me. But if you like your murder mysteries Christie-esque, this is probably something you'll enjoy.

'A Lively Midwinter Murder' is available now.