Golden Age of Detective Fiction

Today is the first time it has snowed where I live in Minnesota, so it feels like the perfect time to post another Christmas-themed book review! I am enjoying the #20BooksOfChristmas reading challenge That Happy Reader created and wonder if what books are on your holiday TBR.

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The Story

At Maude Daneson’s boarding house, the various lodgers are getting ready for Christmas. A few are trying to avoid the holiday, and several more are trying to get through the Christmas break with only minimal contact with their fellow lodgers. But all of them are forced to make cheer when Daneson decides to have a real old-fashioned Christmas dinner with a roast, champagne, and all of the trimmings, her gift to all of her lonely lodgers.

Outside the little hamlet of the boarding house, a serial killer is rampaging through London and murdering shop clerks by stuffing fake snow down their gullet or shoving a harmless holiday shopper under a train. As Christmas approaches, the killings, of which there seems no rhyme or reason other than opportunity, are happening closer and closer together. The police are baffled until they are invited to Christmas dinner at Maude Daneson’s.

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The Review

The Twelve Deaths of Christmas is the opposite of the usual cozy Christmas fare and instead posits: what if the lead of a slasher movie is roaming around London, killing at will? The murders are melodramatic and gruesome, but the gore is undercut by the fact that we get several chapters written from the killer’s POV. Their descent into madness is cleverly written as deeply sad and incredibly funny, providing a unique blend of emotions for the readers. Babson imbues these chapters with a lot of empathy for the killer- they don’t want to kill- they are just constantly being forced to kill because the merriment of the holiday season is driving them insane.

Literally.

Maybe Babson is just writing about how we all feel as the pressures of holiday gift buying, gift giving, constant partying, eating, singing, etc., mount and mount. Fortunately, most of us don’t murder strangers; we just decompress during a rather subdued January.

The unraveling of the killer’s inner thoughts contrasts starkly with the other chapters of the story, which follow Maude Danesn’s preparations for her festive dinner. Through her eyes, we learn about her lodgers, who are all a bit strange but probably no worse than any other collection of random neighbors forced to make small talk at a block party.

Throughout the story, Babson pointedly casts suspicion on each of the lodgers, and I suspected them with vigor. Petty thefts, small slights, and little comments are used to reveal the true nature of the different lodgers. Does Daneson suspect any of her cohorts as potential murderers? No. I thought at some point she would get in on the sleuthing, but that’s wholly the responsibility of the reader and the police.

The police are bowled over by the sheer number of murders -twelve! The bizarre murders lead them to suspect a few different people until everything comes to a climactic and chaotic dining room scene. This scene, filled with Babson’s signature pathos and humor, is a testament to the intense and chaotic nature of the story’s climax.

The Twelve Deaths of Christmas is a slim volume that has the reader reeling from murder to murder and from possible suspect to possible suspect at a dizzying speed. One of the book’s chief issues is that there’s no time to let any event sink in or to reflect on the story as a whole—there’s another murder to get underway. The book is like eating chocolate: one or two pieces are a treat, and twelve pieces spoil the enjoyment.

If you want an over-the-top, unabashedly murder-centric Christmas read, then The Twelve Deaths of Christmas will surely delight you. You, I liked the book. It reminded me of The ABC Murders, but if the book was written from Cusp’s POV. The lodgers were intriguing, and I wished I had spent more time with them instead of having to cut away to another murder.

I think twelve murders instead overwhelm a book and is better suited to TV series episodes where they are spaced out and more time is devoted to plot and character development. (Honestly, this would make a great 12 part min series on the BBC) 

The Twelve Deaths of Christmas is a fun read. It’s not the best-executed story, and it might be too much, but it’s fun and a unique slant on a rather overcrowded genre.

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#20BooksOfChristmas Reviews