The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year by Ally Carter

Knives Out gets a holiday rom-com twist in this rivals-to-lovers romance-mystery from New York Times bestselling author Ally Carter.
The bridge is out. The phones are down. And the most famous mystery writer in the world just disappeared out of a locked room two days before Christmas.
Meet Maggie Chase and Ethan Wyatt:
She’s the new Queen of the Cozy Mystery.
He’s Mr. Big-time Thriller Guy.
She hates his guts.
He thinks her name is Marcie (no matter how many times she’s told him otherwise.)
But when they both accept a cryptic invitation to attend a Christmas house party at the English estate of a reclusive fan, neither is expecting their host to be the most powerful author in the world: Eleanor Ashley, the Duchess of Death herself.
That night, the weather turns, and the next morning Eleanor is gone.
She vanished from a locked room, and Maggie has to wonder: Is Eleanor in danger? Or is it all some kind of test? Is Ethan the competition? Or is he the only person in that snowbound mansion she can trust?
As the snow gets deeper and the stakes get higher, every clue will bring Maggie and Ethan closer to the truth—and each other. Because, this Christmas, these two rivals are going to have to become allies (and maybe more) if they have any hope of saving Eleanor.
Assuming they don’t kill each other first.

Why I Picked It Up

Thanks for reading Words Like Silver! Subscribe for free to support my work.

Subscribe Now

placeholder

Ally Carter has been a favorite of mine for a long time. I grew up on the Gallagher Girls series, recently reread Heist Society (because of the Louvre break-in), and adored Embassy Row. She's cinematic and funny and clever, and embodies this lecture that her friend Jennifer Lynn Barnes (a successful YA author and researcher studying the science of fiction and fandom herself) gives on writing for the id.

I think Carter has always been one of the few authors who really understands, internalizes, and serves the domain of reluctant readers. She is an auto-buy for me, every time.

In the adult sphere, meanwhile, I didn't love The Blonde Identity, which felt underdeveloped instead of snappy. Carter also veered into writing a truly, um, genre-fitting movie for Christmas TV called A Castle for Christmas—which is very bad, but fits that exact demand of so-bad-you-have-it-on-in-the-background holiday movie. Thus, she did a good job?

So I had no idea where I'd fall on The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year, especially because Christmas is not my favorite holiday and so the holiday reference isn't enough to do it for me.

About the Book

I actually ended up loving it; The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year has a lot of what makes Ally Carter so great without falling victim to the few shortcuts that cheapened some of the other works I haven't loved.

There's a small flavor of Emily Henry's Beach Read in the rivals-to-lovers storyline: two authors who are often competing for the same opportunities. There's Ethan, the "leather jacket" writer with a mystery special ops background of some kind (everyone is always guessing, and the women are always swooning.) He always gets Maggie's name wrong, and she's so sick of seeing everyone fangirl over him when his plot twists just involve cheap explosions. Maggie, meanwhile, despises Christmas because all the worst events of her life seem to happen around then.

Most recently—last holiday season—she walked in on her best friend and her husband cheating on her. Not only did he walk off with half of everything she'd worked so hard for, but she lost everyone who mattered to her in one fell swoop and half her copyright, meaning half of her royalties forever would go to him. (Shudder.)

This Christmas, they've both been invited to Eleanor Ashley's estate and end up pairing up to solve a mystery when the iconic writer suddenly disappears.

Voice & Tone

The plot itself feels Christmas-y in the sense that there's a drafty old mansion with white lights and eggnog and a snowstorm outside (so nails the holiday atmosphere precisely) without succumbing to being too kitschy or referential. So I actually loved this as a Christmas book.

Where I felt like Carter's previous adult book faltered was that it was too quick and snappy without the necessary room to let anything develop, so I was pleasantly surprised that The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year didn't fall victim to the same flaws.

Instead, the blur of characters, introductions, snapshots, etc. felt evocative rather than interrupted. Everything seemed to have enough room, despite there being a lot packed into the plot, so I was relatively convinced by each twist or development. The writing is constantly playful, but grounded enough here to keep it feeling substantial in where it leads you. For example, I loved the Marcie/Maggie joke, and it made perfect sense in how it advanced the plot for both narrators.

It did feel like Ally Carter at her best in this type of speedy, classic mystery. While I'm partial to her dealing with a cast that clearly has plenty of history, this book did an excellent job surfacing details and humor and intrigue at exactly the right times, so you got all her signature flair in a really iconic story structure. I loved it, and also thought everything wrapped up so brilliantly. Very satisfying.

Overall Thoughts

I'm glad I picked up The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year, and would gladly reread it a December or two from now when craving my usual Christmastime cocktail: something propulsive enough to keep me entertained beyond atmosphere. Ideally exciting and a little funny.

Also: while the title makes it seem hyper-seasonal, you could absolutely read this one any time (probably in winter though) without feeling discombobulated. The romance made sense; the emotion was raw and believable, which was a tough ask over such a limited time period. I was expecting it to be much flatter.

Ally Carter does so much well, and I think she leaned just enough into tropes, references, etc. to make the "mystery writers in a mystery" plot feel appropriately meta rather than lazy, which is a hard balance for many to pull off. I feel the same about how she handled holiday details; they were punctuated rather than overly reliant. All in all, a winner. Also, love her wordplay. (Apparently, this is part of the Kiss Merry Kill series...)

For fans of:

Beach Read by Emily Henry; Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan; Gallagher Girls (obviously); Knives Out (also obviously); The Inheritance Games by Jennifer Lynn Barnes.