The Twelve Suspects of Christmas - Ana T. Drew - ★★

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AUTHOR: Ana T. Drew
GENRE: Cosy Mystery.
RATING: 2 stars.

In a Nutshell: Expected better because of that cute cover and premise. But both the mystery and the holiday vibes were disappointing.


Story Synopsis:
In January 1961, Annie’s fiancé Rene, who was on the radar of the police for a heinous crime, killed himself. Now, six decades later, eighty-four-year-old Annie has discovered an old postcard addressed to her, which makes her question the past. She decides to take the help of Rose, an eccentric “doga” teacher and amateur private eye who has been in her mid-sixties for a few years now, to dig into the events of the 1960s and discover what happened to her first love. This begins a journey spanning various locations and persons in France.
The story comes to us in the third person perspectives of Annie and Rose.


Bookish Yays:
🎄 At just about 250 pages, this is a very quick read.

🎄 The various French locations are explored really well. From the fictional town of Beldoc to the actual places in Provence, the setting works nicely for the story. There are also some excellent trivia about France scattered throughout the story.

🎄 The flashbacks seem accurate to the time, with the inclusion of several actual events and political developments from France in the early 1960s.

🎄 Annie is of Armenian origin, so from her point of view, we get a few glimpses of Armenian culture.

🎄 That cover is adorable!


Bookish Mixed Bags:
🍃 The “mystery” is a lot more complicated than I expected it to be. While I like its scope, I am not sure if I like the resolution. It seems farfetched and overly coincidental. (Do note that I am not a huge cosy mystery fan. I grabbed this more for the old ladies on the cover and the potential Christmas vibes than for the mystery itself.)

🍃 There are several indirect references to Christmas. The story is set around the holiday time, so there are mentions of trees and decorations and the like. I liked the inclusion of the Orthodox Christmas details, thanks to Annie’s heritage. But the story never feels ‘Christmassy’. The festival feels like it is in the background than a main part of the story. Considering the cover and the title, this is a big disappointment.

🍃 The lead pair of Annie and Rose are quite the opposite of each other, despite their closeness in age. Annie is prudish and old-fashioned and in a weaker physical state, while Rose is overly fit for her age and a free spirit at heart. I love how the story didn’t make the two senior citizens similar in behaviour simply because of their age. However, all this should have led to an interesting study of contrasts. But both of them are so judgemental and self-centred that I found it hard to connect with either. Rose is also an ageist, which makes her annoying. Moreover, there is simply no connection between the two of them, nothing to explain how they developed their friendship, if any, over the period of the investigation.


Bookish Nays:
🍂 I am not a fan of flashbacks being written in the present tense while the contemporary timeline is also in the past tense. It is so confusing!

🍂 There are way too many characters in the book! I was a bit prepared for this keeping the title in mind, but it still didn’t help. Worse, the characters, except for the lead pair and a couple other secondary characters, are not developed well. It’s quantity over quality, unfortunately. I meant to count if there were actually twelve suspects as promised by the title, but I lost track (and interest) after a while.

🍂 The story feels more like a drama than a cosy mystery. Many scenes aren’t related to the investigation at all, which itself is too meandering to sustain interest. I also couldn’t buy the idea that an honest policeman would reveal insider details of an official murder investigation to a private detective not working on that case just because the detective is his relative.

🍂 The Goodreads blurb reveals too much. I hate it when blurbs go beyond the initial 15-20% of the book. This one goes almost till the 80% mark.

🍂 I am sorry, I know this isn’t the book’s fault per se. But I am never going to enjoy any reference to the ridiculous concept of “doga”. It is culturally offensive to us Indians! Stop using that stupid word!


Overall, I expected a cute Christmassy cosy with two senior citizens handling the investigation, but the book turned out to be a generic drama with minor shades of gangland crime. If it had delivered either on the mystery or on the holiday feels, I would have still rated it higher. Sadly, it didn’t work for me on both counts.

Mine appears to be an outlier review as of now. So please go through the other opinions before you take a call on this indie work. This book supposedly stands alone within the Julie Cavallo Investigates Series, which I haven’t read and therefore don’t know if my experience was affected by the lack of familiarity with the characters.

My thanks to author Ana T. Drew and BookSirens for the DRC of “The Twelve Suspects of Christmas”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book. Sorry this didn’t work out better.

This book is currently available free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers.

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