The murderer taunts Edie from the beginning of the book, which builds in suspense as the killings go on. The puzzles were a great addition to the overall mystery, and I truly enjoyed having them in there. The characters were colorful, the hints were ingenious, and the humor frequently made me giggle, but overall, the book felt stiff. This was a alright, cozy Christmas mystery.

On 19th of December, renowned puzzle setter, loner and Christmas sceptic Edie O’Sullivan finds a hand-delivered present on her doorstep. Unwrapping it, she finds a jigsaw box and, inside, six jigsaw pieces. When fitted together, the pieces show part of a crime scene – blood-spattered black and white tiles and part of an outlined body. Included in the parcel is a message: ‘Four, maybe more, people will be dead by midnight on Christmas Eve, unless you can put all the pieces together and stop me.’ It’s signed, Rest In Pieces.

Edie contacts her nephew, DI Sean Brand-O’Sullivan, and together they work to solve the clues. But when a man is found near death with a jigsaw piece in his hand, Sean fears that Edie might be in danger and shuts her out of the investigation. As the body count rises, however, Edie knows that only she has the knowledge to put together the killer’s murderous puzzle.

I have read several Benedict's books and I have loved them all. I love how lively Benedict's narrative voice is. Good twist. I loved the inclusion of puzzles in this, and I found it really added to the overall mystery. I also loved how personal this mystery became for the character, and it really added when the killer was revealed. The differing POVs added make this a thoroughly enjoyable read!!

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for this ARC! The Christmas Jigsaw Murders by Alexandra Benedict is a thrilling and cleverly plotted holiday mystery. It centers on Edie O’Sullivan, a puzzle setter and Christmas skeptic, who receives a cryptic jigsaw puzzle predicting multiple murders unless she can solve the clues. As Edie collaborates with her nephew, Detective Inspector Sean Brand-O’Sullivan, the suspense escalates, weaving together dark, festive twists and clever word games. Benedict's use of anagrams and puzzles, alongside the traditional whodunit formula, gives the story a unique charm reminiscent of Agatha Christie's Golden Age mysteries. With a fast pace and a compelling mystery, this novel is a gripping holiday read​.

Very enjoyable! This was such a good book. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. The author did a superb job with her character’s and the plot had some twists and turns that I really enjoyed. Edie and Sean make an excellent team, maybe they can have their own series.

This was a joy to read! Loved Edie and Sean's relationship. Most of the characters in this story are characters themselves. I love a good puzzle and this just kept me on my toes. A great cozy mystery even tho it's a little less cozy and way more mystery. =)

This was fantastic. I really enjoyed reading it and didn’t want to put it down. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this ARC!

This is the third book by Alexandra Benedict that I have read and I absolutely loved it. Her mystery books make you think outside of the box. There is just something about Christmas and Murders that just go together for me.

My absolute favorite of the author's Christmas Murder Mystery themed books. Alexandra Benedict did a fantastic job with her character development and the plot was excellent. I love how the book centered around jigsaw puzzle pieces were the clues.

Honestly, I would love to see Edie and Sean in other Murder Mysteries together. They make an excellent duo

The Christmas Jigsaw Murders is a fantastic mystery! I loved this book!
The main character is an older, grouchy jigsaw puzzle setter with quite the mystery on her hands.

With some help she investigates, and she is just one of the best characters I have read.

I love mysteries with older sleuths. I happen to be a huge jigsaw puzzle fan as well.

The mystery had some twists and turns that I really enjoyed.

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for this arc!

This was such a good book. I really enjoyed it. More than I thought I would. I loved the writing style. This book had me hooked from page one. This is a first for me by this author but will not be my last!!

I really enjoyed this book. It did start off slow but soon picked up and I thought it was really good.

I really enjoyed this one! This book starts off slow with the murderer taunting Edie, and continues to increase in tension as the murders continue. I loved the inclusion of puzzles in this, and I found it really added to the overall mystery. This is one of the first murder mysteries set at Christmas that I've read, and I really enjoyed it

I received a free copy of, The Christmas Jigsaw Murders, by Alexandra Benedict, from the publisher and Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Edie O'Sullivan loves puzzles, she receives a couple puzzle pieces, that are actually puzzles to a crime. Edie and her nephew who is a DI, try to solve the puzzle. This was a good cozy Christmas mystery.

I feel I’ve discovered my new favourite character – Edie the plain speaking, punk, octogenarian cruciverbalist. She’s a woman after my own heart spending her time setting crosswords and doing jigsaw puzzles with her cats and her wild herbalist neighbour for company. Her past starts to catch up with her when she receives some jigsaw pieces in the post which seem to be threatening the life of her beloved great-nephew.
Excellent mysteries to solve before the deadly deadline with perfect humour and hilarious verbal spats. Great stuff.

Just days before Christmas, 80-year old Carla, a newspaper crossword puzzle setter and jigsaw puzzle enthusiast , receives a package on her doorstep containing a few jigsaw puzzle pieces and a dire warning that she must solve the puzzle before people die. Forced to work with her police detective nephew/son as well as around him, it's up to her to dig into decades-old secrets to try to prevent murder.
This was another captivating mystery with the bonus of intriguing puzzles for the reader to look for scattered throughout the text. Though it took a little bit to get into and used to Carla, a most unusual character for a sleuth, after the first few chapters the story just built and chugged forward, becoming more interesting the further and deeper the mystery went. I thought I had figured out the killer early, but the clues I thought I had picked up on had me completely guessing in the wrong the direction. The only thing that held me back from rating this 5 stars is the fact that, while it was possible to guess the killer, their connections to the victims and the motive for the crime weren't revealed at all until near the end of the book. Considering the type of mystery novel and the fun type of additions for readers to seek out while reading, there should have been some findable hints earlier in the story.

“Ms O'Sullivan,
You are known for your cross words, but can you set your sights on a murderer? Four, maybe more, people will be dead by midnight on Christmas Eve, unless you can put all the pieces together and stop me. Make sure you do it properly. You never were a good cheater.
Yours,
Rest in Pieces”

Loved it !!! So much so that I feel like I’m back in my mystery era !!! I’m a fan of this author’s mystery books. She always manages to make me smile and laugh and get back to the thriller genre in the best possible way. The plot was complicated but not too much as to sound hard to read. I finished it in one sitting. It was also brilliantly written and as per usual with this author I appreciated the chapters with the killer’s pov!!! The main character reminded me a lot of an angrier and maybe less kind version of Miss Marple and I loved it. The family dynamic and the characters’ relationships made the mystery intriguing and addicting. I was trying to figure out the clues times and times again, finding myself a bit too lacking. The fact that anagrams were constantly thrown into the narrative made me fall in love with the story and the jigsaw puzzle pieces left everywhere for us to uncover, made the reading experience so much more stimulating. I’m so so glad I got to read this book!!! I’m honestly in much need to collect books from this author until we reach the next adventure !!!

"I'm the Pensioner Puzzler. Of course I'm going to investigate."

“Piece by piece, murder by murder, they'd make it the perfect Christmas.”

Edie is 80 years old, a crossword setter for major newspapers, and hates everything Christmas. Her mother died giving birth on Christmas; then her brother and one of his children died on Christmas. She began putting up walls to protect herself from the pain of caring (except for her nephew, Sean). When she ends a love affair on Christmas, she refuses to have anything to do with Christmas and keeps to herself in her cottage with her puzzles and her cats. Except for one elderly neighbor, she has no friends.
When a jigsaw puzzle box with a message stating at least four people will die if Edie doesn’t solve the puzzle, she calls her nephew, a police detective. Soon she is trying to solve the puzzle, to his irritation. The body count is piling up, and Edie is forced to face her pain, losses, and mistakes over the years.
This is a good, unusual mystery with a bit of The Christmas Carol thrown in as Edie changes her ways at the end.
Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for the ARC.

Alexandra Benedict specializes in Christmas cozy mysteries, and after “The Christmas Murder Game” and “Murder on the Christmas Express,” this year we’re treated to “The Christmas Jigsaw Murders.”

Curmudgeonly 80 year old Scrooge-ish Edie, famous crossword compiler known as the “Pensioner Puzzler” is challenged by someone going by the name “Rest in Pieces” to solve a partial jigsaw puzzle...or 4 deaths will occur by Christmas. The premise is sort of silly (well, maybe Will Shortz of the New York Times gets weird gifts, too), but go with it and enjoy a great cozy mystery. There are some old age themes of loneliness and regret — Edie never married or had her own children, but she adopted Detective Inspector Sean, her great-nephew, when his parents died; and she did have a great forbidden love. Now she has her 90 year old neighbor, Riga, a “domestic vampire” whose boozy recipe for a killer Christmas drink is included at the end. Over the course of the story, we learn more about Edie’s past and how it fits into solving the jigsaw puzzle clues.

The author also adds a jigsaw representation of a letter of the alphabet at the start of each chapter that the reader is challenged to piece together, plus a series of unexpected words and phrases (“chilblain,” “Costa toilet”) that are anagrams of classic book titles (note: I read an ARC, so the anagrams might visually be highlighted in the print book, but most include words you feel were forced in a sentence). Plus, there’s a delightful love of Fleetwood Mac songs subtlety referenced throughout. And the super clever acknowledgements — you cannot miss those! This was a comfy, pleasurable, and amusing read. 4 stars!

Literary Pet Peeve Checklist:
Green Eyes (only 2% of the real world, yet it seems like 90% of all fictional females): YES Riga has moss green eyes.
Horticultural Faux Pas (plants out of season or growing zones, like daffodils in autumn or bougainvillea in Alaska): NO Riga does have an impressive honesty plants going to seed.

Thank you to Poisoned Pen Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy!

Edie O'Sullivan. A well-known crossword puzzle creator, dislikes the Christmas season due to the family losses
she has suffered. Other than her great nephew Sean, who she raised and loves dearly, the only other person
she tolerates is her next door neighbor Riga. Upon receiving a mysterious package that contains six pieces
of a jigsaw puzzle, the letter included is of concern. The letter states that Edie needs to solve the puzzle to
prevent the death of four, or possibly more, people. What concerns Edie most is the piece that shows the watch
that Sean wears. She turns over the letter and jigsaw pieces, excepting the one that shows the watch, to Sean,
an Inspector, to investigate. When Sean is called to the scene of an attempted murder, he learns that pieces of
a jigsaw puzzle, the investigation becomes serious. As more people are murdered with jigsaw pieces left behind,
connections between the victims and Edi's and Sean's lives, the stakes are raised.
Interesting characters and read.
#TheChristmasJigsawMurders #PoisonedPenPress #NetGalley

This is the first book I've read by this author, and while some parts fell a bit flat for me, the book in it's entirety was well done.
I liked the inclusion of all the different word games, and using a jigsaw puzzle to solve the murder kept me reading.
Edie is a colorful character, there's a lot to her, and I did lime her spunk and her attitude.

All things considered, I give the book 3.75 stars ✨.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for selecting me to read an advanced copy of this book.