Category Archives: Christmas

A Different Take on St. Nick

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StNick_FrontCover-200x300St. Nick
Alan Russell
Thomas & Mercer
Paper $14.99
ebook $3.99

I was looking for a noir novel with a Christmas theme.  Something similar to the book I reviewed last year.  While browsing some of Amazon’s Christmas offerings, I came across St. Nick by Alan Russell.  It wasn’t quite what I was looking for, but I’ll get to that.

The book opens on Thanksgiving afternoon.  Disgraced San Diego cop Nick Pappas has gotten up and is trying to decide what to eat, the bowl of cereal he’s just poured…or his service revolver.

So far, so good.  This is a good opening, and I’m wondering what is going to keep Pappas from offing himself.  The phone rings, and it’s his first partner, who is retired from the force and is in charge of security at a large mall.  There have been some violent muggings at the mall.  Can Nick go undergover? Continue reading →

Tis the Season for an Easy Death

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Easy DeathEasy Death
Daniel Boyd
Hard Case Crime
paper $9.95
electronic $7.99

If you’ve been looking for some Christmas noir, then look no further. Daniel Boyd’s tale of an armored car heist gone wrong is the perfect stocking stuffer. And you shouldn’t wait until Christmas to open. The book, that is.

It’s December 20, 1951, and Eddie and Walter are planning on pulling off an armored car heist in the middle of snow storm. It’s a chancy thing to do, but it goes down without a hitch. The the other shoes start dropping. Continue reading →

A Pair of Christmas Crimes From Kristine Kathryn Rusch

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In this post, we’ll look at a couple of short stories with a Christmas theme from Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

EQMJAN2015“Christmas Eve at the Exit”
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine
January 2015

Rachel and her daughter Anne-Marie are on the run from her husband, a brute of a man who has enough money and power that he can destroy her if he catches her. Rachel has faked their deaths and is heading for safety on the other side of the country. She has help and she’s going to need it.

It’s Christmas Eve, the weather and roads are bad, and Rachel is stopping for the night. Anne-Marie is concerned about Santa finding them. She’ll find out it will be better if he doesn’t show up at all. Continue reading →

Merry Christmas

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Santa-Criminal

Merry Christmas.  Here’s hoping yours is merrier than the law allows.

Spend the day with a gumshoe or a femme fatale.  Have some booze with a broad.  But leave the gats and bullets at home.  They’ll keep until the day after Christmas.

No matter which side of the bars (or law) you’re celebrating on, have a Merry Christmas.  And remember, while the sound you hear you hear up on the roof may be someone trying to enter your house, it probably isn’t a second-story man.

Probably.

Different Christmas posts are up at Adventures Fantastic, Futures Past and Present, and Dispatches From the Lone Star Front.