ShortBookandScribes #BookReview – The Christmas Clue by Nicola Upson

Posted on 18th December 2025 By Nicola

The Christmas Clue by Nicola Upson is published by Faber & Faber and is out now. My thanks to the publishers who kindly sent me a copy in a Harrogate at Home box of goodies.

Christmas Eve, 1943. Anthony and Elva Pratt arrive in a snowy English village to run a murder mystery game – and instead discover a real murder.

The Pratts had planned for festive cheer, despite the wartime shortages: with Elva’s map of the hotel and Anthony’s prop weapons to use as clues, the guests in their parlour game would move through the rooms to figure out whodunnit.

But when Anthony discovers the cook’s sister Miss Silver beaten to death, they instead find themselves investigating a shockingly real crime. The hotel manager Mr Browning is trying to keep the peace but the guests are agitated, Colonel Colman is about to take over the hotel for the war effort – and the mysterious Mrs Threadgold hasn’t been seen at all.

In games, there’s only one victim – but this is real life. Can the Pratts puzzle out this Christmas mystery before it’s too late?

The Christmas Clue takes the real life inventors of Cluedo, Anthony and Elva Pratt, and places them in their own whodunnit. It’s Christmas 1943 and the Pratts return to the hotel where Anthony played the piano pre-war. They’ve been asked to run a murder mystery game for the guests but from the moment they arrive in the village they are thrust into their own murder mystery when they discover the body of the owner of the local sweet shop. Can the Pratts find out who did it and why?

I think Nicola Upson has hit upon a genius idea with this book. I’ve never given any thought to the inventors of Cluedo, despite playing it many times over the years. This story blends real life and fiction really well and it’s interesting to think about how the inspiration for the game may have come about. I’m not sure the Pratts were involved in any real life sleuthing but certainly the first subtitle of the game was Murder at Tudor Close, being the hotel the couple had visited before the war and the hotel they visit in the book.

The Christmas Clue will appeal to all fans of classic crime. It’s a well-written crime mystery and I was fascinated by the hints as to what would one day make up one of the best-known board games of all time (did you know one of the original weapons was to be a syringe?).

Nicola Upson was born in Suffolk and read English at Downing College, Cambridge. Her debut, An Expert in Murder, was the first in a series of crime novels to feature Josephine Tey – one of Britain’s finest Golden Age crime writers – and was dramatised for BBC Radio 4. Several of Nicola’s novels have been listed for the CWA Gold and Historical Daggers, and Sorry for the Dead was a Waterstones Thriller of the Month. She is a member of the Detection Club, and in 2024 curated the acclaimed Murder by the Book: a celebration of twentieth century British crime fiction at Cambridge University Library.

She is also the author of Stanley and Elsie, a novel about the painter Stanley Spencer, and lives with her partner in Cambridge and Cornwall.

Nicola’s latest novel is The Christmas Clue, a festive mystery starring the real-life couple who invented Cluedo.