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Rebecca McCormick. Powered by Blogger.

Mistletoe and Murder by Robin Stevens - Review

Thursday, January 30, 2020

I first read this back in 2016 on my Kindle, but I didn't own it in paper. I wanted to own all the Detective Society books in paper, so when we met Robin Stevens last month Lee bought this for me as a Christmas present. I really wanted to reread it as I remember it being the best of the series, and I didn't want to wait too long after Christmas, so I started this at the first weekend of January.

It is definitely my favourite of what is a fantastic series of books. Hazel and Daisy are spending Christmas in Cambridge with Daisy's brother, Bertie. He is a student at the fictional Maudlin college and lives on staircase 9 with a number of people, including Donald and Chummy Melling. The two are twins, and Donald, as the elder twin, is poised to inherit rather a lot of money on Christmas Day when he turns 21. A number of things have happened to him which make it look like Chummy is trying to get rid of him so that he can inherit the money himself.

Daisy and Hazel are staying at St Lucy's college with Daisy's great aunt, who is a professor. During the day they're supposed to be looked after by Amanda, a student, but she ditches them to rush around Cambridge on a mysterious errand, meaning Daisy and Hazel are free to watch the Melling brothers and try to unearth the mystery.

Their friends Alexander and George are also there. They met Alexander while on the Orient Express in a previous book, and he and Hazel have been writing to each other ever since. Hazel has a bit of a crush on Alexander, but it turns out he only has eyes for Daisy, who is very scornful about this. Meanwhile George turns out to have an Indian dad so even though he was born in Britain he sticks out in the same way that Hazel does, and the two bond over that. The boys have a detective society too, and the two groups work together to try to get to the bottom of what is going on and, later, who has committed a murder.

I love this book because Cambridge is described really vividly and beautifully throughout the book. You can really imagine yourself on staircase 9, or on the backs, or wandering through town when it's all decorated for Christmas. There's always a bit of a focus on food in these books, but nowhere is it better than in this book, where there's Christmas food everywhere and plenty of celebrations going on. It has such a lovely festive feel to it and I wanted both girls to enjoy themselves so much!

I thoroughly enjoyed my reread and am still giving this book five out of five.


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