The author did amazing work recreating that narrative style and voice you might find in a classic mystery or drama. UNFORTUNATELY, this book does NOT live up to its title and premise XD. The book is largely NOT about The Christmas Tree Murders XD. It is instead about a missing person. The lady lead, Camille, ignores significant evidence, and jumps to conclusions about other details. Not that ANY of the detecting matters one iota! The author A) Holds the reader's hand by switching PoV, making sure we get all pertinent information and confessions straight from the horse's mouth, and B) Holds the surprise (i.e. tropetastic NON-surprise) of a hitherto unknown evil sibling having been the guilty party all along until the final 15 pages of the book! There are head-banging parts of the mystery that the reader can deduce so easily, that it's an insult when Camille can't, and yet she's praised for her "intelligence". And there are other parts of the book that the reader was never going to get, because the author was more interested in giving a reveal than rewarding a sleuth.

I give the book one star back for being inclusive, and for having positive messages about community needing to be about mutual respect and friendship that transcends class. But I can't do more than that, I'm too bitter about the misnomer of this mystery.