Her Last Christmas by Claire McGowan * * *

I read Her Last Christmas by Claire McGowan because I was in the mood for something seasonal but not romantic. A Christmas murder mystery felt like a safe bet, and this one delivers exactly that: snow, isolation, wealth, discomfort, and a body in the hot tub before the mulled wine has time to cool.

The story follows Emma, a barrister from a working class background, who joins her boyfriend Michael and his circle of extremely wealthy friends for Christmas in an Alpine chalet. They have been dating for six months, which matters more than it first appears. Emma expected a quiet holiday for two; instead, she finds herself stranded on a mountain with people who have known each other forever, who ski effortlessly, who move through luxury as if it were air. She cannot ski. She does not belong. She knows it, and they know it too.

When one of the group is murdered, suspicion falls neatly and conveniently on the outsider. The plot unfolds through a compact series of twists, none of them wildly inventive, but all of them competent. This is not a book interested in elaborate puzzles; it is interested in social fault lines. Money. Class. Loyalty. Who is protected, and who is expendable, when the stakes rise.

Emma is a mixed experience as a protagonist. At her best, she is deeply relatable. Her discomfort in wealth, her constant second guessing, her sense of being judged and found wanting all ring true. At her worst, she becomes whiny and sharply judgemental herself, in a way that occasionally grated. I found myself sympathetic to her circumstances but less so to her tone. She reminded me of other Christmas heroines who spend too much time mentally cataloguing everyone else’s moral failures while insisting on their own victimhood.

Michael, her politician boyfriend, remains oddly passive throughout the story. There are hints of deeper complications around him, but they never quite crystallise. In fact, none of the characters are particularly deep. Their defining trait is wealth, and the way they close ranks around it. That is clearly intentional, but it does leave the cast feeling more functional than memorable.

The setting does a lot of the heavy lifting. The chalet, the snowed in mountain, the sense of physical and social isolation all work well. As an audiobook, the story moves briskly, it’s a little over 5 hours. I listened to it over a couple of days and found myself returning to it easily, which counts for a lot.

There was one narrative thread that genuinely intrigued me and ultimately went nowhere. Emma’s flat is burgled before the trip. We are told she takes sleeping pills. Later, everyone’s drinks are drugged except hers. I became convinced the burglary was about switching her medication, that the pills had been replaced with poison, and everything goes horribly wrong. That twist never comes. Perhaps it is too macabre for this book, but I confess I liked it more than the solution we were given.

The ending itself seems to divide readers. I have seen plenty of complaints, but I found it acceptable, even realistic. It does not aim for shock so much as inevitability, and that feels consistent with the story’s emotional logic.

This is not a book that will linger with you, and it is not trying to. It is a neat, contained Christmas thriller with a strong sense of place, a readable pace, and a familiar but effective premise. If you want something seasonal, mildly tense, and undemanding, something to listen to while doing other things, this will do the job. It may not be unforgettable, but it knows exactly what it is, and it delivers that cleanly.