Happy Bloody Christmas – Outrageously Funny Holiday Cozy Mystery
Last Updated on April 22, 2026
As much as I go in for schmaltzy Christmas themed cozy mysteries – the kind that end up becoming Hallmark TV movies – nothing gives me more pleasure than those with a much funnier take on the holiday season.
As soon as I saw Happy Bloody Christmas by Jo Middleton, I made a fairly good guess that it would be right up my street.
And it was. From the second our leading lady wakes up with an almighty hangover after an amaretto-fuelled Christmas party the night before, I knew I would love both her and the book.
So if you love your humour on the darker side, don’t mind the odd swear word and can identify with a woman trying to do it all, including solve a murder, the day before Christmas, then hopefully you will love it too.
Meet Anna Johnson
Anna Johnson is every perfectionist trying to create the best Christmas, not just for her family but also to impress her mother-in-law.
With a doting, but sometimes hapless, husband Oli and two children – teenager Ben and seven-year-old Lily – Anna starts her Christmas Eve on very shaky ground.
No sooner has she woken up with an almighty hangover with the house to clean, she discovers a dead body in her larder.
Santa, otherwise known as her boss Colin, is lying there slumped with one of her precious Sabatier knives protruding from his stomach.
Like any normal woman who comes face-to-face with a dead body in her kitchen, she immediately panics.
She calls her best friend Jennie, decides to get the kids out of the house and only then sitting in Starbucks, does she tell her husband.
She heads home, calls the police and when two rather inept detectives turn up makes the decision that if she wants to know who killed Colin, she’s going to have to solve it herself.
The Suspects
The first thing Anna has to do is list everybody who was at the party the night before.
Then she must work out what time Colin was actually killed. With little to go on, she enlists not only Jennie and Oli to help her but also her son Ben for his tech skills.
But there are so many potential suspects that whittling them all down is not going to be easy.
There’s her brother and his partner, her neighbour and his new girlfriend, work colleagues and friends…the list goes on.
Worse still is that absolutely nobody liked Colin. A grade A sleaze-bag and throughly unlikeable man, it would appear that almost everyone had a reason to bump him off.
And that’s a problem for Anna who has a tendency to let her imagination run away with her. At one point she even wonders if her own husband could have done it.
Thankfully, between peeling the potatoes and prepping the Christmas starter she begins to work out exactly what happened.
But can she really figure out who the culprit is in less than 24 hours??
A Thrill For Mystery Lovers
Most books generally don’t reference real world murder mysteries or legends of the genre. Not so with Happy Bloody Christmas.
Jo Middleton goes to great lengths to include almost every conceivable detective and tv show she can think of.
At last count we have Death in Paradise, Agatha Christie, Agatha Raisin, Poirot, Miss Marple and Rosemary and Thyme.
Plus a lot more meta inclusions such as ‘I know I can’t actually solve the murder – this isn’t a cosy crime novel – but is there any harm in having a quick look around before the police get here?’
It’s great fun to have so many real world mentions in the book.
It genuinely makes it more relatable than a lot of others – a bit like when Anthony Horowitz refers to his own life or when Richard Osman mentions Waitrose or the Boots meal deal in his novels.
Somehow it makes the story more real and grounded but with Middelton’s sense of humour, also stays on the right side of good fun.
Another Instalment
Even though Happy Bloody Christmas was only released on Kindle in September 2024 and in paperback a month later, there’s already a sequel in the works.
It’s called Not Another Bloody Christmas and is due for publication in October 2025.
The story picks up a year later when Anna decides to take her family away for Christmas to avoid a repeat of the larder debacle.
Despite her best efforts she soon finds herself plunged into another festive fiasco when a body turns up in the library of their supposedly ‘idyllic’ rural retreat.
With some unwanted guests, a snowstorm, and the mysterious Mrs Haddock to contend with, Anna and her unlikely allies will have to save Christmas again or risk it being their last!
Other Jo Middleton Books
Jo Middleton is a British writer and podcaster known for her engaging and relatable content.
She is the author behind the popular blog Slummy Single Mummy, which she has been running since 2009.
She has also published Playgroups and Prosecco: The (Mis)adventures of a Single Mum (2019) and Toddlers and Tequila (2019).
In addition to her writing, Jo is an enthusiastic podcaster and co-hosts It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere with friend and author Gill Sims (Why Mummy Drinks).
So if you want more reading fun or fancy a great podcast while you’re out and about, check out those mentioned above.
Thumbs Up
Overall, Happy Bloody Christmas gets a huge thumbs up from me. There were plenty of chuckles, relatable mayhem and clues along the way.
It’s definitely the kind of book that you play along with and yes, I did guess the killer and why, but it didn’t stop me from savouring every last word.
I can’t wait for next year to do it all over again with the sequel.
