The Christmas Dinner Murder by Sarah Dunnakey

Audrey Peppertree has invited her family and some friends for Christmas. Her family is old, wealthy, and not a little obsessed with puzzles. Her family estate is even called Puzzle House and the invitation is an acrostic. So is one of the replies, insinuating that Audry is going to die. So that's fun. And that's why Eloise is invited to the party. She's a bodyguard. Admittedly her last client did almost get blown up, but that has been Eloise's profession for a very long time, even if she is currently pretending to be a school teacher. 

 There's quite a bit going on in this book with more death threats disguised as puzzles, family tensions, and people dropping dead. I really enjoyed it as we got to solve along with the characters as well as putting together puzzles that led to the (fairly clued - I guessed most of the answer without solving all of the puzzles) solution. the puzzles included things like cryptic clues, something that I am still working on understanding but they were overall fairly fun. It did take me awhile to get into the story and there were some plot points that seemed extraneous, even as red herrings, but I mostly enjoyed this book. 

Three and a half stars

This book comes out November 5, 2026

ARC kindly provided by Avon Books and NetGalley

Opinions are my own