She Treads Softly: Christmas Presents

Wednesday, October 18, 2023

Christmas Presents

Christmas Presents by Lisa Unger
10/24/23; 224 pages
Mysterious Press

Christmas Presents by Lisa Unger is a very highly recommended psychological suspense thriller that is definitely not a Christmas story.

In 2014 Madeline (Maddy) Martin was the only survivor of a terrifying crime among friends and is trying to recover and move on. She is currently the owner of a successful bookstore, The Next Chapter Bookshop, and trying to balance working with making sure her father is cared for after his stroke. Now a true crime podcaster/writer, Harley Grange, is in town and looking into what happened years ago with Evan Handy. Handy was convicted for killing her friend, Steph, and is suspected in the disappearance of two sisters, also friends of Maddy, whose bodies were never found.

The problem is that since Handy went to prison, three other young women have gone missing. The most recent missing woman is Lolly and from the opening chapter readers know her from her job dancing at a club. Now Christmas is approaching, a blizzard is coming, and Lolly is still missing. She was looking forward to going home for Christmas. Grange is trying to look into the missing girls, but he needs help from those who were there when it started in 2014.

Billed as a novella, Christmas Presents weighs in at 224 pages so it's on the short side, but it is a complete, compelling story that readers will love. Unger expertly sets the atmosphere and introduces the characters. Maddy is a sympathetic character, She's trying to recover from what happened years ago, but it's a well known fact in the small town she's in. She's trying to help her father recover and make a living. Granger is who he is. He's not pretending or putting on a false front. He wants to dig and uncover anything that has been overlooked. Lolly is the only character experiencing terrifying circumstances, but her voice appears infrequently.

Admittedly, I guessed what was going on before the ending, but this is the pleasure in reading thrillers. Authors leave clues and readers follow them. Keeping in mind the page count, there wasn't a lot of extra time to distract readers and set up false leads.I knew what I was getting into at the start, but also knew Unger would write an exceptional story no matter the length. I was right.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Mysterious Press via NetGalley.

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John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.