Who has ever been blessed by a stress-free Christmas? Is there another breaking point that might make a character tip into becoming murderous? Being cut off while vying for a parking space? Listening to that friend who tries to start an argument about Die Hard being a Christmas film, unaware that this opinion has been non-contentious for decades?

Structurally, crime writers are also blessed by an automatic ticking clock for a Christmas mystery. It’s an unspoken rule, but it’s sacred: the murder must be solved by (or on) Christmas Day. A deadline in a novel is a technique to up the suspense, as characters race against it.

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But atmosphere, environment and structural tricks aside, a good Christmas mystery comes down to one thing: fun. Christmas books are designed to be read while prostrate on the couch full of pudding, while floating in the pool on an inflatable lilo, or while pretending to umpire the backyard cricket game, paperback splayed open in one hand. Sure, the books may have murder and thrills in them, but they also have to be joyous. The clues must be Christmas-themed, the characters should don some kind of festive outfit, and when the murder is solved, justice is done and we get a happy ending.

I take this to its natural extreme in my new mystery, Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret. The baking heat of the Australian summer meets tinsel-draped corpses aplenty and a mystery to solve. However, my book is also an advent calendar. It’s 24 chapters, of which 23 hold 23 clues for the murder, and the 24th reveals the killer. If you start reading on December 1 and read a chapter a day, you’ll have it all solved by Christmas. But it’s not like I’m going to supervise. Some people like to eat all the chocolates at once.

We mustn’t forget the most important thing in a Christmas book. The puns! No writer can resist the opportunity for titles and taglines galore. There are several books out there titled, The Twelve Murders of Christmas because any serial killer worth their salt knows that body parts are more interesting than French hens, and that’s before we get into the plethora of Silent Nights and Better Watch Outs.

In short, if you want a perfect murder mystery: pick up a Christmas-themed one. They sleigh. Sorry: slay.

Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret (Penguin Random House) by Benjamin Stevenson is out now.

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