My favourites in this were the Sherlock Holmes (which I've read many times), The Chopham Affair, and Haunted House, but my absolute favourite was The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel, which is very like The Signalman by Charles Dickens, a story that I love. Austin Freeman - not a name I knew - whose 'Mr Ponting's Alibi' was long enough, like the Doyle and the Chesteton, to develop a neatly attentuated investigation by lawyer Thorndyke whose relations with the local detective, Superintendent Miller are similar to Holmes and Lestrade.

The Chopham Affair by Edgar Wallace - in which a blackmailer of ladies meets his end on a snowy night by a roadside with a fantastic twist in the end. This collection of short winter chills boasts tales from GK Chesterton, Arthur Conan Doyle, Dorothy L Sayers and more. The Adventure of Abbey Grange' by Conan Doyle - Sherlock Holmes chooses to play judge and jury, after his detective work is done . The seasonal murder book market is flooded and there’s a whiff of barrel scraping here but, despite that, some major authors are included.The Michael Innes story is also great - less wordy than his full-length Appleby novels, and very clever. T. Meade and Robert Eustace, possibly the standout story here for me, but I remembered it fairly well from reading it somewhere else, possibly in one of the British Library collections. Austin Freeman - in which a woman is murdered and finding her killer may hinge on finding a cat, a dog and a monkey.

Every Christmas I treat myself to anthologies of murder mysteries from the Golden Age (sometimes beyond) and this proved to be a very solid and entertaining example of said type. Sayers' Sleuths on the Scent has a classic scenario of weary travellers trapped by bad weather, this time in the bar of the Pig and Pewter. Haunted House by Gladys Mitchell - in which a woman's murder on a snowy night in her supposed haunted house is resolved to be all too human.The stories don't have details of the dates when they were written or previously published, which is a shame. Though there are 2 - 3 stories that were genuinely fun and exciting to read, most of them were a bit of a letdown – being rather clumsy and awkward. A pretty ragtag selection, all told, with only Conan Doyle’s ‘The Adventure of the Abbey Grange’ and Edgar Wallace’s sneakily structured ‘The Clapham Affair’ truly standing out.

Some of the other stories are less good and I didn't really like the Father Brown story that's included at all. Some of the stories are also in other collections - I really like The Mystery of Felwyn Tunnel by L. Some have what I consider to be the prerequisite of a really good short story, namely a beginning, a middle and an end with a sting in the tail which, however mild, leaves me with pause for thought.

Perfect to dip in and out of between other festivities and I am building my collection of this joyous series! I felt they passed the time nicely, but apart from the Conan Doyle and the Chesterton, I found them tidy but rather workaday. These are mainly set in the last century but I love the old fashioned settings, the way people spoke, the simplicity of life and the hardship of it before the health service, before the welfare state. So bundle up, grab a glass of mulled wine, and get ready to be puzzled, astonished and entertained by these festive stories of murder and mayhem.