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.

Heinous Puzzler..
A macabre and threatening gift of a jigsaw puzzle sparks a dark and mysterious tale of intrigue and murder in this Christmas puzzle to savour and a whodunnit with a difference. Can Edie, with bodies mounting and the time ticking, solve this heinous puzzler and stop a determined and blatantly evil killer? With a well drawn and entertaining cast, an enjoyable plot and a well imagined setting, this is a compelling mystery for the festive season.

A cozy mystery with word puzzles throughout, The Christmas Jigsaw Murders has all the appealing components of a good read. However, the off-putting characters combined with a confusing plot, resulted in me not finishing the book. Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the opportunity to read and review the novel.