Publication date: October 24, 2023

Summary

The Fairway Players were putting on a Pantomime of Jack and the Beanstalk for Christmas, but something went terribly wrong when a dead Santa was found in the middle of the stage. On November 1, 11 months after the death, Roderick Tanner reaches out to the lawyers Femi and Charlotte to ask for their opinion on who may have done it. He sends copies of letters, emails, texts and scans of discovery materials.

My Thoughts

This entire book is written in the form of some kind of correspondence – usually text or email. It tells a story, but not in the traditional sense. It’s an incredibly clever approach to a mystery because it provides so many potential hidden clues.

There are some very funny moments and pantomimes themselves are meant to be farcical performances.

This was book 1.5 in the series and I hadn’t read book 1, so none of the characters were familiar to me, and because of the format of correspondence, I found it very difficult to keep track of who everyone was and didn’t understand some of the references.

Unfortunately, I only made it 30% of the way through the book. The style of texts and emails just didn’t work for me. It felt hard to follow what was happening or to remember who everyone was. That said, for people who really like to put an emphasis on the puzzle over the characters and setting, I think this would be a great book. It has humor and it is very fast-paced. However, I would strongly recommend reading the first in the series before attempting this one.

My Rating 2/5

I received a free eARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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