A review by alexampersand
The Christmas Jigsaw Murders by Alexandra Benedict

3.5

I enjoy a murder mystery, so this was a fun adventure to start my year.

There were an awful lot of convoluted clues, so much so that it was hard to really be able to do much guesswork myself, which for me is part of the fun. Almost all the characters were introduced with some tenuous motivation, and none of the letters or jigsaw puzzles were exactly easy to figure out as readers.

Unfortunately the conclusion was also a little bit disappointing for me. First there was quite an anti-climactic reveal, and I assumed it was a red herring reveal... which it wasn't, but it develops a little further. Unfortunately the further development and 'full' reveal relied on some deep dark memory that Edie had chosen to repress for 20 years, even more reason for a reader to not even be able to begin putting together the answer.

Still, taking away the idea of me trying to solve the mystery as I read it, it was good enough! Other than characters on more than one occasion saying the word 'etc' which I'm pretty sure I've never heard a single person use in spoken dialogue.