★ 08/30/2021

As the holiday season descends on the lakeside town of Sweet Haven, public defender Victoria Grossburger recruits her old friend English professor Cameron Winter, the protagonist of this spare, heartfelt crime novel from Edgar winner Klavan (Werewolf Cop), to try to clear Travis Blake, a third generation Army Ranger who’s accused of murdering his girlfriend, Jennifer Dean, a beloved elementary school librarian. Victoria’s biggest problem is the evidence, including a videotape of Travis lugging Jennifer’s body from the murder site. Also, Travis has confessed to the crime. As Winter delves into the murder, he begins to suspect all is not what it seems in this tight-knit community of military veterans. In flashbacks, Klavan brings the victim to life, while sessions between Winter and his therapist, Margaret Whitaker, inform Winter’s backstory and take on a fairy tale–like tone that adds to the darkness of the novel and the central crime. The core of the book, though, is Winter, whose voice and strength of character drive the story, particularly in the satisfying and exciting conclusion. This terrific holiday-themed novel will leave readers unsettled and hopeful at the same time. (Oct.)Correction: An earlier version of this review incorrectly stated the author had been a finalist for the Edgar award.

"A masterclass in mysteries of the melancholic kind."

"Klavan serves up yet another fabulous thriller! A gripping read that’s also the perfect holiday gift."

"Andrew Klavan is a superb entertainer, and his work has real substance. I look forward to his books like I looked forward to Christmas when I was a kid. When Christmas Comes is wonderful, gripping, a pure delight."

"Andrew Klavan is the most original American novelist of crime and suspense since Cornell Woolrich."

"WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES is an ideal mystery novel for the winter season and one you will not soon forget."

11/01/2021

Cameron Winter has achieved the respectable position of associate professor for English Romantic Poets at the nearby university, but it's his self-described "strange habit of mind" that makes him truly special. From his youngest years, Cameron has been able to think, or imagine, himself into the center of a tangled story and consistently come out with a solution. When an old girlfriend, now married, asks him to help figure out what really happened in the murder of Jessica Dean, Cameron uncovers the truth and also looks harder at his own troubled childhood with new understanding. With just a few characters, it's easy to slip right into the mysterious circumstances surrounding the murder, including the close-knit community, the victims' lack of personal history, and Cameron's insights. The menacing behavior, peppered with physical harm, and sinister characters will keep this book on any suggestion list year-round, and the satisfying ending will be the holiday gift readers didn't know they needed. VERDICT Readers craving something less sweet than the traditional Christmas story will devour Klavan's (The Nightmare Feast) fast-paced, secret-driven story in no time at all.—Stacey Hayman, Rocky River P.L., OH

2021-07-10
The most wonderful time of the year doesn’t do a bit to deter Klavan from his trademark razzle-dazzle plotting.

Nothing bad, it seems, has ever happened in the patly named town of Sweet Haven, which is both 20 miles and a whole world away from the Fort Anderson Army base—at least not until ex–Army Ranger Travis Blake kills his sweetheart, elementary school librarian Jennifer Dean, hacks her to pieces, and dumps her remains in a nearby lake. Since Blake has volunteered a full confession, there’s no mystery to solve. Yet nothing about the crime seems to make sense, and Public Defender Victoria Grossburger, convinced that her client is lying, asks her friend and former lover Cameron Winter to find evidence that will prove it. Winter, a literature professor who sees things other people don’t, has a fairy-tale backstory as a poor little rich boy ignored by his parents and still haunted by a story his nanny’s brother told him as a child about a wintry encounter with a young woman who was stabbed to death by her father more than 200 years ago. Klavan has limited interest in stitching together the different pieces of his puzzle—everything’s a psychomachia, Winter eventually decides, as if that settled it all—but the climactic surprise, following complications that get wilder and woolier, is not so much logical as inevitable. And readers who can swallow the miracle of Christmas may well decide that they can accept this frankly fictional and oddly inspirational tale as well.

Just the thing for one of those lengthening nights between Halloween and Christmas.