Latest Reads: The Deaths of December Susi Holliday.

Publication Date: 16th November from Mulholland

Source: Review Copy

It looks like a regular advent calendar.

Until DC Becky Greene starts opening doors…and discovers a crime scene behind almost every one.

The police hope it’s a prank. Because if it isn’t, a murderer has just surfaced – someone who’s been killing for twenty years.

But why now? And why has he sent it to this police station?

As the country relaxes into festive cheer, Greene and DS Eddie Carmine must race against time to catch the killer. Because there are four doors left, and four murders will fill them…

It’s shaping up to be a deadly little Christmas.

I’m not sure how many sleeps it is until Christmas right now (no please don’t tell me!) but if you are already looking out for the perfect book gift to give this year and you prefer your festive season dark and dastardly, you probably can’t go wrong picking this one up and popping it into a few stockings. Keeping one for yourself of course…

The Deaths of December is a rocking good crime read, twisted and clever, personally I might sit and read it again on Christmas Eve when there will only be one more sleep….

A very different kind of advent calendar turns up, showing mini crime scenes – some of which are all too familiar to Eddie Carmine – together with Becky Greene he tries to untangle a killers’ pointed yet hidden message – and prevent more deaths at this oh so happy (???!!??) time of year.

I’ve always loved the characters that Susi Holliday portrays in her novels – they are very very real, could easily be your neighbour or your friend (even the killers!) which makes any reading of her novels a truly immersive experience. I hesitate to say that a Christmas book featuring a serial killer can be all the fun – but actually it WAS all the fun, a story I got all tangled up in until the final resolution which was perfectly formed.

As the countdown continues it gets ever more intense, there are also a lot of hidden layers here, it is like unwrapping a gift only to find another wrapped gift and so forth until you end up with a severed finger or something (yes my mind just goes there ) as things unwind and we find out what is behind that final door. So to speak.

Spoiler: It ain’t puppies, kittens, or the jolly fat man in red.

The writing as ever is excellent, the plot tightly woven and endlessly intriguing and this is absolutely my type of Christmas read – dispensing with the holly and the church bells and replacing them with bodies and bloodshed. Criminally good reading.

Highly Recommended.

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Happy Reading!

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