Two Very Different Christmas Mysteries: The Christmas Killer, and Owl Be Home for Christmas

 

DI James Walker and his wife Annie have moved away from London and to a small English village, in an attempt to get away from a terrible criminal who still haunts them. But murder finds them anyway, when Walker starts receiving The Twelve Days of Christmas cards promising that twelve villagers will die in the next twelve days.

Pine does a good job of building suspense. The setting is a perfect choice, with the village becoming completely isolated by a massive snowstorm. And in a small village everyone thinks they know everything about everyone else, but the murderer knows a lot of secret sins that they are using to determine who dies.

Annie's character was not my favorite. I didn't feel she added a lot to the book, and even became a little irritating to me at times. I also didn't feel the first person chapters that came whenever someone was about to be murdered were necessary. But the ending was a great twist, and very scary and suspenseful. I'm curious to see where this series goes, as this is the first entry.

Another entry in this really fun cozy mystery series, this book finds Meg Lanslow and her family helping run a conference on owls. But there is a lot of in-fighting and backstabbing among the scientist attendees, and with the inn snowed in, everyone is stuck together. When a murder occurs, Meg must help solve the mystery before another crime occurs.

This is just an enjoyable series that always makes me smile. The family characters are all a lot of fun and bring a lot of humor to the story, and the scientist characters in this story were all unique and interesting. The snowed-in atmosphere added a lot of tension, and the ending was a real surprise.

Note: I received ARCs of these two books from the publishers in exchange for honest reviews. This did not affect my opinions of the books or my reviews themselves.