This is a series of twelve short Sherlock Holmes spin off stories, each of them being a play on words with a stanza of the seasonal song (I read the appropriate one on each of the twelve days). These are well written, with an authentic Holmesian feeling, though with the occasional grating Americanism. Some of them were based on misunderstandings rather than crimes, but nearly all of them had a nice feeling of completeness and working as self-contained stories. My favourites were probably The Four Calling Birds, The Five Gold Rings (where Holmes, called out of retirement, owns a Bassett hound called Lestrade) and The Ninth Ladyship at a Dance. ( )