The premise is the best thing here. After the trauma of the previous case, sending the Naturals to play matchmaker is a genuinely funny idea, and it lets the group be a group again. Watching a group where one feels what others feel, one hears every lie, two profile for a living and one trusts the data try to engineer a romance for two people who are already obviously in love is exactly the kind of comedy these characters were built for. Sloane treating courtship as a dataset she can optimise is the high point for me, and I laughed out loud on the school run.

Underneath the Christmas comedy, the book never pretends everything is fine. Cassie is still dealing with what happened to them, and Barnes does not skip past the psychological fall-out just because the mission is a lighter one. That balance is why the series works: the fun is earned because the damage is real, and the new case creeping in around the edges reminds you that this group is never off duty for long.

Amber Faith makes ten hours feel much shorter than they are, and the ensemble is easy to follow thanks to small shifts of pace rather than theatrics. The one thing I would flag is that the mystery takes a while to properly bite, because the matchmaking plot occupies the first half and the crimes are a low hum until they are not. It is a deliberate choice and it pays off, but if you arrive expecting the relentless pacing of Bad Blood, give it a few hours before you judge.

You can start here, though it will spoil the emotional history that makes this one land. If you have followed the series and want more Barnes, look at The Gilded Blade, the third Grandest Game book, and The Same Backward as Forward if you like the way she writes complicated families. This is a Christmas book with a body count, and that is a very good thing.