I was drawn to this book by the title and cover and as I’d been wanting to give Martin Edwards another try – I didn’t really get on with Mortmain Hall – I decided to read it. I’m pleased to say that I really enjoyed this one!
Harry Crystal, who narrates part of the story, is the author of thirty-two mystery novels. When online influencer Carys Neville describes his books as ‘dozy crime’ and accuses him of being an Agatha Christie copycat, Harry finds himself dropped by his publisher. Receiving an invitation from the Midwinter Trust inviting him to spend Christmas in the village of Midwinter and participate in a murder mystery game with a cash prize for the winner, Harry decides to accept. After all, he doesn’t have much else to do and winning something would help him to feel less of a failure.
Midwinter, considered one of the most remote settlements in England, is a tiny former mining village in the North Pennines. Privately owned by the Midwinter Trust, it’s advertised as a place to retreat from the outside world. Harry arrives during a period of heavy snow to find that the village really has been completely cut off from the rest of the world, with no phone or internet access. To his dismay, Carys Neville is one of the other contestants, along with four other people, all of whom are involved in some way with publishing or crime writing. Winning the prize isn’t going to be as easy as he’d hoped!
Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife is the title of the mystery put together by Trust director Bernadette for the six guests to solve. Clues and evidence relating to this fictional mystery are given in separate chapters titled Bonus Puzzle Content. The reader can try to solve this mystery for themselves, as well as a ‘real’ mystery which begins to unfold involving the guests, staff and Trust members. However, this structure didn’t work quite as well as I expected; the mystery-within-a-mystery feels undeveloped and is referred to less and less often as the book goes on so that when the solution was eventually revealed, I didn’t really care – and it seemed that the players didn’t either.
The Midwinter storyline was much more compelling than the Miss Winter one. I loved the setting and Edwards does a great job of conveying how remote and isolated the village is, beginning with the atmospheric drive from the station across deserted snowy moorland. Although I felt that some of the characters could have been stronger, I enjoyed the sections written from the perspectives of Harry Crystal and another of the guests, the publicist Poppy de Lisle. It’s not clear who can and can’t be believed, what the true motives of the Trust are or why these particular six guests have been invited to Midwinter, so there’s a lot to unravel.
Edwards is clearly a big fan of Golden Age mysteries (he’s the editor of the British Library Crime Classics series) and the influence of Christie and other authors is obvious here. He also includes a Cluefinder – a device sometimes used in GA mysteries – at the end of the book, listing all the clues that appeared throughout the story with references to the chapter they are found in. Unfortunately, I hadn’t spotted many of those!
I didn’t love everything about this book, then, but I did find it very entertaining and was surprised by some of the plot twists towards the end. It would be a perfect book to read during a winter snowstorm.
Thanks to Aria & Aries for providing a copy of this book for review via NetGalley.
Book 1 for RIP XX
She Reads Novels 
Cool! Sounds good. I’ll look out for it. I have a few Winter themed BLCC coming up, plus a Christmas Sherlock mystery… [grin]
I have a few more wintery crime novels coming up soon too. I’ll look forward to seeing which ones you read!
Sounds fun! I’ve only read one of his mysteries but I dd enjoy it!
I need to read more of his books! I had almost dismissed him as not for me after not enjoying the last one I read, but this one was much more fun.
This is a great title, I haven’t read any of his mysteries yet but this looks a good place to start!
Yes, I love the title! I’ve only read two of his books but I definitely think this is a great place to start.
Great review. I usually really enjoy Martin Edwards and this one is waiting for me at the library. It does sound very different to his normal style so I’m a bit unsure about whether I will like it or not at the moment
I hope you like it. It’s only the second book I’ve read by him so I didn’t have much to compare it with.
I haven’t read any of Martin Edwards own mysteries, just his collections of short mystery stories for British Library, but I have to get this one just because of the title!
The title is the reason I wanted to read it too!
The title of this one caught my eye too but I don’t think I’ve seen the cover before 🤔 I love it though. I’m glad his worked better for you than the previous titles you tried by the author. Although its a shame that the secondary mystery wasnt as well developed as the main one, especially as the idea of two separated like that sounds fun. I love the clue finder inclusion too, I havent tried a mystery containing one of those before but it seems fun to check back and see what you spotted and missed.
Yes, I thought it would have been fun trying to solve the secondary mystery along with the characters, but it didn’t quite work like that. The cluefinder was interesting, though – I missed nearly all of the clues so clearly wouldn’t make a good detective!
This sounds fun! I do love a bit of Cluedo and am always Professor Plum 🙂
There seems to be a current trend for Cluedo-inspired books – I have another one coming up soon on the TBR.