You better watch out

On Christmas Eve, thief Eddie wakes up in a deserted ghost town after being attacked by the very strangers he was planning to rob. Unsure of his surroundings or why he is there, he soon meets Jess, Trinity, and Greg, who each only remember being attacked and then waking up afraid, alone, and cold in the town where they all seem to be trapped. As they try to find their way out, each of them is revealed to have a darkness in their past that is likely the reason they were chosen to be trapped together, but why? The moment they start piecing together who their captor might be, they begin to be killed off one by one, each in a more gruesome manner than the last. Will they make it to Christmas morning, or will they meet their ends in over-the-top, gory deaths? In You Better Watch Out, authors Murray and Wearworth (Don't Move, 2020) have produced a story for lovers of campy B-horror movies, creating a book that feels like Saw with a Christmas twist.

And Then There Were None meets Saw in the deliciously demented latest collaboration between Murray and Wearmouth (after The Stowaway). Hoping to make some easy money just before Christmas, small-time crook Eddie Parker follows an elderly man in a wheelchair and his wife into an upstate New York grocery store after seeing them brandish a large wad of cash. Instead, as he's pretending to help them load their bags into their minivan, he's knocked out and awakens in an old, abandoned home without his wallet or cell phone. Soon, he learns that five others have been imprisoned with him inside a ghost town rimmed by an electric fence. While Eddie and his fellow captives--including fraudster Greg Fisher, convicted rapist Damien Hurst, drug dealer Tank, and two young women named Trinity Jackson and Jess Kane, whose pasts remain elusive--scramble to determine what's going on, they start dying one by one, in spectacularly gruesome fashion. Murray and Wearmouth have plenty of impish fun with their well-worn premise, delivering a slick slasher that's easy to wolf down in a single sitting. It may lack staying power, but it will satisfy readers who like their holiday fare bitter. (Oct.)