Murder on a Midnight Clear

 Murder on a Midnight Clear by Sara Rosett

A light-hearted mystery. The guests arriving at an English country manor for Christmas have secrets to keep, and they manage quite well until amateur sleuth, Olive, shows up. She wasn't meant to be a guest, but has followed her boyfriend, Jasper, there because his unexplained absences are becoming suspicious. Her snooping leads to a car accident near the manor, which results in her spending several days there to recover from a minor injury.  

A snow storm keeps her from leaving, which is just as well, because someone is reported missing and then found dead. The only thing anyone knows for sure is that the butler didn't do it, because the butler is it - the dead body, and it turns out he had secrets, too.

Jasper's original business at the manor is a bit of espionage that will be explained later in the book, and Olive's crime solving activities are common knowledge, so the Lord and Lady of the manor ask that they look into the murder before Scotland Yard arrives, which will be a couple of days because of the storm. Secrets, so many secrets, come to light in their sleuthing that the plot becomes quite thick indeed. It took me a minute to connect some of the dots, but that's what makes a good mystery a good mystery. 

This book lands somewhere in the middle of a series about Olive's investigating adventures but is the only one of them I've read. It was pretty good on its own; only Olive and Jasper's relationship might have been clearer to me if I'd read earlier books in the series. I enjoyed this one, but haven't decided yet if I'll read more of them.