This year I finally read all the books in this series that are available in the U.S.  I may have read this one over the summer and saved the review until it was more seasonally appropriate… what could go better together than Cambridge at Christmas with a spot of murder?

Mistletoe and Murder. Wells and Wong #5 by Robin Stevens. Simon & Schuster, 2018. Originally published in the UK by Puffin Books, 2016. 

It’s Christmas in Cambridge with this fifth entry in the Wells and Wong (UK Murder Most Unladylike) series.  Hazel and her best friend Daisy are visiting Daisy’s Aunt Eustacia, who lives in the invented St. Lucy’s College for girls at Cambridge, where Daisy’s brother goes to the also invented Maudlin College.  There they meet Alexander, with whom Hazel has been corresponding since their train adventure together in a previous book, as well as his best friend, George Mukherjee, and several other acquaintances from the past.  There are pranks and accidents, and a very tricky murder, as well as the developing relationship between Hazel and Alexander and Daisy’s even more pronounced disinterest in boys. There is secret climbing on the buildings at night, the sadness of seeing the decided prejudice against women, even those bright enough to make it to Cambridge in the 30s, and Hazel not being the only person of color for the first time since she’s come to England – though she thinks of it as not being the only non-English-looking person.  This series is such a delight, combining great mysteries with astute observations on people. I only wish I could get more people at my library to read it.