We seem to be overwhelmed with Christmas murder mysteries this year - in this case in a puzzler-friendly format as Alexandra Benedict throws in a number of optional challenges for the reader, from spotting references to Fleetwood Mac songs (always a Christmassy activity) to Dickens novel anagrams in the text and a Christmas song puzzle in the chapter headings. If, like me, you just want to get on with the story, then there's a tangled web of relationships and past dark secrets to sort out in tracking down a series of murders that are accompanied by jigsaw puzzle pieces as clues. The murderer has devised these hints for the crossword-setting main character, Edie. The murder mystery itself is satisfying, and Benedict manages the build of clues and red herrings well. But I did have two problems. The lesser one is that Benedict's writing style can be a little uneven. There are some over-baked similes (think 'tree branches reached for them like the bony hands of hair-ruffling au

Until recently, I'd classified Richard Osman's cosy murder mysteries as 'not worth reading as it's only successful because he's on the TV'. But a friend's write up persuaded me to give them a try - and I confess they are better than expected, if not what I expected.  I'm reviewing the first two books in the series together here because the first, The Thursday Murder Club , feels as if Osman hasn't quite decided what he's writing, while it becomes much clearer in the second book. After reading that, my impression of the first improved significantly. The basics sound more than a little silly. A group of four OAPs in a retirement village attempt to crack old, unsolved murders as entertainment, but this activity draws them into sorting out a current case with the help of a pair of friendly police officers. (It also helps that one of the OAPs is ex-MI6.) What we get in that first title is a perfectly reasonably cosy murder mystery (a genre I generall

The other day, I was reading the late Christopher Booker's ridiculously long The Seven Basic Plots and came on a spot of science writing that made me gasp in its comprehensive inaccuracy. He is looking at creation myths, giving us three versions, the final being the Big Bang theory, which he tells us 'is still "telling a story", and in this sense we can look at it just as we would look at any other type of story. Now, I have no problem at all with that statement. A scientific theory of any kind is definitely a form of narrative - and since cosmology tends to be at the more speculative end of science, because you can hardly replicate the experiment, it is particularly apt to think of it in this way. But here's the story that Booker tells us: 'The "Big Bang" theory of the creation of the universe suggests that in the beginning there was an agglomeration of hydrogen atoms, so tightly compressed together that it was only millimetres across and of almost

This time of year I mostly abandon popular science books for lighter reading. As a result, crime will feature frequently in my reviews, which will also often be Christmas- themed. Normal service will be resumed as soon as I've got through my Christmas reading pile.  Image by Mike Blank from  Unsplash   See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly digest for free here

This novella gives us a highly engaging Christmas-set (technically it's in Advent) mystery. We start in the New York apartment of the female narrator, who, at Christmas time, unearths an old diary from exactly 30 years before, covering the days leading up to a horrible event in a Cotswold manor house.  The majority of the book consists of these diary entries from student days, which are mostly appropriately fluffy and young adult in feel. But at the heart of it all is something much darker. It's hard to say more without giving anything away, but it's all very neatly done, with two big twists in quick succession about three quarters of the way through.  The only  criticism I have is that once you've hit those twists, the ending is a little bit of a let down, as it feels like there should be a final twist to really finish things off - but it remains a really good, intriguing seasonal read, if you like Christmas with a murderous side. I don't honestly know why Christma

Janice Hallett has rapidly become the best active light crime writer, bettering her first two books with the outstanding The Mysterious Case of the Alperton Angels , so I rushed to purchase her latest, a Christmas sequel to her remarkable debut The Appeal . Written in her distinctive modern epistolary style - in this case primarily featuring emails and WhatsApp messages, it is an entertaining piece of fluff, but not up to the usual standard. Let's get the good part in first. The storyline features a pantomime, and there is a particularly strong thread of humour here - more so than usual in her books. Christmas always makes a great setting for a cosy mystery, and this comes across nicely here. There was one point (featuring a dog and a bone) when I laughed out loud and plenty more to smile at. As always, Hallett manages brilliantly at using the apparently distancing style of collecting written communications to really get us into the heads of the characters and to keep track of a ta

This week I'm reviewing two books on the Popular Science website , neither of which was published this year. Usually, book reviews are of the latest titles. This is partly because these are the titles publishers are enthusiastic to get seen, but also tend to be selected to ensure that the reviewer seems current. I think, though, that there are several reasons to consider a book that's been around a while. Sometimes it's because there's a new edition. This may not make much difference to the content, but the book might have been out of print or otherwise hard to come by. Occasionally there may also be genuinely interesting new content (as opposed to yet another preface no one wants to read). I've got a lot in the past out of some annotated books, though my experience with Frankenstein 'annotated for scientists, Engineers and Creators of all kinds' was not great. One of my reviews this week will be a new edition. The visibility created by a new edition (even