12 Ways to Kill Your Family at Christmas

Natasha Bache

This over-the-top murder mystery — think And Then There Were None at Christmas — is a super-fun accompaniment to (or distraction from) your holiday hijinks. It’s the bookish equivalent of an ugly Christmas sweater paired with Christmas bauble earrings and a light-up reindeer hairband — it’s too much and exactly right.

Our heroine Olivia has married into the wealthy Weiss family. Her husband Miles seems lovely, but his family? His family is terrible. Every year, Olivia, Miles, and their two kids spend the entire Christmas season at the Weiss family manor house in North Wales.

But this year is the last time.

Olivia and Miles are moving to Australia. It’s the last holiday they’ll be required to appease Grandma Toots, put up with Aunt Clem’s shrill voice, dodge too-close conversations with drunk uncle, and weather Miles’ condescending perfect brother, perfect sister-in-law, and perfect nieces.

Their arrival at the mansion is marred by two announcements: Yes, the entire family will participate in the annual Murdery Mystery Dinner Party that night, and the elder Weisses have changed their will — Mile and Olivia are out, perfect brother is in.

Then there’s a massive snowstorm.

Now at this point, you probably think you know where this story is heading. They’re all snowed in and they’re playing a murder mystery game; surely someone is going to die for real. And they do. Of course they do! But not during the murder mystery game.

Author Natasha Bache is up to something way more unhinged than that. Each of the victims is picked off while participating in a Christmasy activity. There’s death by gingerbread house poisoning and death by snowman, a terrible tragedy at the Christmas tree farm, and more. Turns out, in the wrong hands, making merry can be very dangerous.

The tone of this anti-Christmas story is delightfully black. Olivia is our primary narrator and her daily recaps are interrupted by diary entries — confessions, really — written by the killer… whomever that may be.

On a scale of one to ten, this books earns 13 out of ten smashed Christmas baubles for keeping it merry, bright, and perilous. There’s the aforementioned snowstorm, christmas-tree shopping, a character in a Santa suit, a tropical Christmas party, and a gingerbread house building competition. All of these activities happen throughout the book, before, during and after the many murders — because the matriarch keeps insisting that CHRISTMAS MUST GO ON.

If you’ve ever been tempted to stab a member of your family with a sharpened candy cane, this is the book you’ll want to read by the light of the Christmas tree.

The dining room was fully decked out in everything you could possibly want or need for decorating gingerbread houses… The long oak table was covered in a red and green tablecloth, dotted with miniature Christmas trees and reindeer figurines. At each place setting was a preassembled gingerbread house, piping bags and dozens upon dozens of neat little dishes containing sprinkles, chocolate chips, and gumdrops. The old gramophone in the corner played Bing Crosby’s Christmas hits. — Natasha Bache

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