The usual Santas A collection of Soho Crime Christmas capers

Book - 2017

"Nine mall Santas must find the imposter among them. An elderly lady seeks peace from her murderously loud neighbors at Christmastime. A young woman receives a mysterious invitation to Christmas dinner with a stranger. Niccolò Machiavelli sets out to save an Italian city. Sherlock Holmes's one-time nemesis Irene Adler finds herself in an unexpected tangle in Paris while on a routine espionage assignment. Jane Austen searches for the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough's stolen diamonds. These and other adventures in this delectable volume will whisk readers away to Christmases around the globe, from a Korean War POW camp to a Copenhagen refugee squat, from a palatial hotel in 1920s Bombay to a crumbling mansion in Havana." --...

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  • Joy to the world: Various acts of kindness at Christmas. An Elderly Lady Seeks Peace at Christmastime / Helene Tursten
  • The Usual Santas / by Mick Herron
  • PX Christmas / Martin Limón
  • Chalee's Nativity / Timothy Hallinan
  • The Cuban Marquise's Jewels / by Teresa Dovalpage
  • A Mother's Curse / by Mette Ivie Harrison
  • Silent night: the darkest of holiday noir. There's Only One Father Christmas, Right? / Colin Cotterill
  • Martin / Ed Lin
  • Queen of the Hill / Stuart Neville
  • Blue Memories Start Calling / Tod Goldberg
  • Bo Sau (Vengeance) / Henry Chang
  • Red Christmas / James R. Benn
  • I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus: and other holiday secrets. When the Time Came / Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis
  • Hairpin Holiday / Sujata Massey
  • The Prince (of Peace) / Gary Corby
  • Cabaret aux Assassins / Cara Black
  • Jane and the Midnight Clear / Stephanie Barron
  • Supper with Miss Shivers / Peter Lovesey.
Review by New York Times Review

THE KINGDOM OF HIS WORLD By Alejo Carpentier. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $15.) First published in English in 1957, this story of a slave surviving the violence of the Haitian revolution is considered a masterpiece of Caribbean literature and a stunning early example of magical realism. THE LAST BLACK UNICORN By Tiffany Haddish. (Gallery Books, $26.) Haddish, a comedian who had a breakout role in the movie "Girls Trip," here recounts her South Central Los Angeles youth and the emergence of her funniness. BRUNCH IS HELL By Brendan Francis Newnam and Rico Gagliano. (Little, Brown, $25.) The authors pinpoint the cause for all our societal problems, the "specter" haunting America. Are you ready for it? It's brunch. Their solution for saving the world is to revive the art of the more civilized choice, the dinner party, and they show you how. ANYONE WHO'S ANYONE: THE ASTONISHING CELEBRITY INTERVIEWS 1987-2017 By George Wayne. (Harper, $25.99.) Wayne is one of Vanity Fair's most provocative and provoking interviewers and this collects his greatest hits, including interviews with Ivana Trump, Martha Stewart and Joan Rivers. THE USUAL SANTAS. (Soho Crime, $19.95.) Crime writers are set loose on Christmas and come up with short stories that take place in a variety of locales, from a Korean War P.O.W. camp to a palatial hotel in 1920s Bombay, all somehow finding a way to craftily meld noir and Noel. "Pssst. Don't tell anyone, but I have a fondness for thrillers. So when I saw a glowing review recently for the second detective novel by Joe Ide about a brilliant African-American detective in a bad neighborhood of Los Angeles, I figured I'd save money and just buy the first in the series, IQ. It's now in paperback, and I'm cheap. Alas, the story was a page-turner, and I was finished in a day - forcing me to buy the just-published sequel, RIGHTEOUS. Both are great yarns, not literary fiction but unembarrassed about having two pages in a row without a chase scene. Gangs, drugs, guns, they all make their appearances, but this is fundamentally a series about a smart, haunted, likable and flawed detective working his way through mayhem. But if anybody asks, I read the series for the sociology." - NICHOLAS KRISTOF, COLUMNIST, ON WHAT HE'S READING.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [July 16, 2018]
Review by Booklist Review

From one story about a crime-solving Jane Austen to another featuring a decapitated crime boss, these 18 crime tales provide a wonderful introduction to the range of fine international mystery authors published by Soho Press. Some of the stories are pure stand-alones (like Mick Herron's delightfully absurd title story), and some offer a glimpse into the domestic life of series characters (like Mormon bishop's wife Linda Wallheim in Mette Ivie Harrison's A Mother's Curse). This collection is perfect for mystery fans who can't decide what they're in the mood for next. Even the most voracious genre reader is likely to stumble onto a new voice. More than likely, they'll be reminded of a favorite they want to check back in on. Perhaps readers looking only for tearful homecomings and talking cats will find some of these stories too coarse for their taste, but everyone else will be well served. The Christmas theme is central to some stories, merely a time of year in others. But each bite-size mystery in this winning collection is a gift.--Keefe, Karen Copyright 2017 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Soho Crime draws from its impressive roster of authors for this outstanding Christmas-themed anthology. The tone of the 18 entries varies considerably, from the lighthearted to the grim. Some contributors use lead characters from their series: Martin Limón features his wisecracking, savvy U.S. Army investigators George Sueño and Ernie Bascom in "PX Christmas," and Jane Austen plays sleuth in Stephanie Barron's "Jane and the Midnight Clear." Others step with ease out of their comfort zone, such as Gary Corby, who takes a break from ancient Greece to feature Niccolo Machiavelli and Cesare Borgia in "The Prince (of Peace)." Ed Lin's NYPD detective Robert Chow is absent from "Martin," one of several tales with a wicked twist at the end. Mick Herron perhaps most effectively integrates Christmas themes in the title story, in which a group of mall Santas, whose real identities are unknown to one another, find that there's a stranger in their midst. Other contributors include Timothy Hallinan, Mettie Ivie Harrison, Sujata Massey, and Colin Cotterill. This is the perfect holiday gift for mystery fans.(Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

With a foreword and story by Lovesy, this holiday-themed collection presents 18 pieces of short fiction from an impressive roster of international mystery writers. The voices veer from darkly humorous -(Helene Tursten and Mick Herron) to touching (Timothy Hallinan and Mette Ivie -Harrison) to disturbing (Stuart Neville and Ed Lin),with tales set around the globe. Standouts include Herron's title story, featuring multiple shopping center Santas in London who enjoy an unusual Christmas Eve, and Cara Black's "Cabaret aux Assassins," a tale of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler in Paris. VERDICT This is a thoroughly entertaining seasonal noir collection with something for everyone. [See Prepub Alert, 4/17/17.] © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

An excerpt from the title story, "The Usual Santas" by Mick Herron Whiteoaks, the brochures explained, was more than a shopping center: it was a Day Out For The Whole Family; a Complete Retail Experience Under Just One Roof. It was an Ideally Situated Outlet Village--an Ultra-Convenient Complex For The Ultra-Modern Consumer. It was where Quality met Design to form an Affordable Union. It might have been a Stately Pleasure Dome. It was possibly a Garden Of Earthly Delight. It was almost cer­tainly where Capital Letters went to Die.      More precisely, it was on the outskirts of one of Lon­don's northwest satellite towns, and, viewed from above, resembled a glass and steel rendering of a giant octopus dropped headfirst onto the landscape. In the gaps between its outstretched tentacles were parks and play areas and public conveniences, and at each of its two main entrances were garages offering, in addition to the usual services, full valet coverage, 4-wheel alignment and diagnostic analysis, as well as free air and a Last-Minute One-Stop-Shop. Cart stations--colored pennants hoisted above them for swift location--were positioned at those intervals market research had determined user-friendly, and were assiduously tended by liveried cart-jockeys. From ten minutes before dusk until ten after daybreak the area was bathed in gentle orange light, the quiet humming of CCTV cameras a constant reminder that your security was Whiteoaks' concern. And in a hedged-off corner between the center's electricity substa­tion and one of four home-delivery loading bays--perhaps the only point in the complex to which the word "accessible" did not apply--lurked a furtive row of recycling bins, like a consumerist memento mori .      As for the interior, it was a contemporary cathedral, sacred to the pursuit of retail opportunity. There was a food mall, a clothing avenue, an entertainment hall; there were wings dedicated to white goods ("all your domestic requirements sat­isfied!"), pampering ("full body tan in minutes!") and financial services ("consolidate your debts--ask us how!"). There was a boulevard of sporting goods, a bridleway of gardening supplies; a veritable Hatton Garden of jewelers. No franchise ever heard of went unrepresented, and several never before encountered had multiple outlets. Whiteoaks' delicatessens carried sweet­meats from as near as Abbotsbury and as far as Zywocice; its bookshops shelved volumes by every author its readers could imagine, from Bill Bryson to Jeremy Clarkson. The shopper who is tired of Whiteoaks, it might easily be asserted, is a shopper who is tired of credit. During the summer, light washed down from the recessed contours of its cantilevered ceilings, and during the winter it did exactly the same. Temperature, too, was regulated and constant, and in this it matched everything else. At Whiteoaks, you could buy raspberries in winter and tinsel in July. Seasonal variation was discouraged as an unnecessary brake on impulse purchasing.      Which was not to say that Whiteoaks ignored the pas­sage of the year; rather, it measured the months in a manner appropriate to its customers' needs. As surely as Father's Day follows Mother's, as unalterably as Harry Potter gives way to the Great Pumpkin, time marches on; its inevitable progress registering as peaks and troughs in a never-ending flow chart.      For there are only seventeen Major Feasts in the calendar of the Complete Retail Experience.      And the greatest of these is Christmas.   At Whiteoaks Christmas slipped in slowly, sublimi­nally, with the faint rustle of a paperchain in early September, and the echo of a jingle bell as October turned. Showing almost saintly restraint, however, it did not unleash its reindeer until Halloween had been wholly remaindered. After that, it was open season. Taking full advantage of its layout, the complex boasted eight Santa's Grottos--one per tentacle--each employing a full complement of sleigh, sacks, elves, snowflakes, friendly squirrels, startled rabbits, and (coun­terintuitively, but fully validated by merchandise-profiling) talking zebras. And, of course, each had its own Santa. Or, more accurately, each had an equal share in a rotating pool of Santas, for the eight Santas hired annually by the Whiteoaks Festive Governance Committee had swiftly worked out that no single one of them wanted to spend an entire two-month hitch marooned in Haberdashery's backwater, or worse still, abandoned under fire in the high-pressure, noise-intensive combat zone of Toys and Games, while another took his ease in the Food Hall, pampered with cake and cappuccino by the surrounding franchisees. So a complicated but workable shift system had been established by the Santas themselves, whereby they chopped and changed each two-hour session, swapping grottos three times a day and generally sharing the burden along with the spoils. This worked so well, so much to everyone's satisfaction, that the first eight Santas hired by the Governance Committee remained the only Santas Whiteoaks needed, returning year after year to don their uniforms, attach their beards, and maintain an impressive 83% record of hardly ever swearing at children whose parents were in earshot.      Santa-ing was not an easy undertaking. It was not a task for sissies. And while the Usual Santas didn't always do things by the book, by God, they got the job done!      And each year, once they'd managed just that--after the shops had lowered shutters on Christmas Eve, and Whiteoaks slumbered, preparatory to the Boxing Day rush--the Santas met in a hospitality room adjoining the security suite, and relaxed over a buffet provided by the grateful merchants of the quarter, and exchanged war stories until the hour grew late, and generally luxuriated in the absence of children.      But however relaxed they grew, they kept their beards on. And remained zipped inside their red suits. And never addressed each other as anything other than "Santa"; and in fact, would have been unable to do so had they wanted, because while they might, for all they knew, be friends and neighbors in civvy street--might drink in the same pub, or regularly catch the same bus to the same football ground--on duty they remained in uniformed character, and always had done. This had started in jest but had quickly hardened into custom. Not long after that, it calcified into supersti­tion. In their dealings with toddlers and hyperactive infants, the Usual Santas had suffered in undignified, frequently unhygienic ways that had bonded them in a manner few civilians could hope to understand, but on every other level they were strangers to each other. And with this, they were perfectly comfortable.      Until, one day . . . Excerpted from The Usual Santas: A Soho Crime Holiday Anthology All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.