‘Perfect for winter nights’: the best crime novels to read at Christmas according to Ian Rankin, Bella Mackie and more
NEWS | 21 December 2024
Ian Rankin A Maigret Christmas and Other Stories by Georges Simenon Christmas can be a bit hectic, so it’s usually Boxing Day evening before I can stretch out on the sofa with the lights dimmed and a glass of something to hand. One year I found A Maigret Christmas and Other Stories in my stocking. Georges Simenon’s doughty, humane bloodhound of a character is perfect for winter nights, his Paris office heated by a stove, his pipe lit and nose attuned to the human condition. There are just three stories in this slim volume and the detective features in only one of them, but it’s still a delight of a book that I will almost certainly find myself rereading this festive season. Ian Rankin is the author of Midnight and Blue (Orion) Bella Mackie The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding by Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot is invited to spend the holidays at Kings Lacey, the country home of Colonel and Mrs Lacey, who promise to give him a proper English Christmas (avid Christie fans will know that Poirot abhors the cold, and he only accepts the invitation when he’s assured they have central heating in every room). Christie goes all in, vividly creating a comforting and wholesome family scene where something sinister appears to be bubbling underneath. With a warning not to eat the plum pudding, and a body found in the snow, the novel showcases Christie’s talent for weaving sinister themes into the most refined of settings. But perhaps the Christmas spirit got to her a little, as this book isn’t as dark as some of her oeuvre (looking at you, And Then There Were None). There’s a rich seam of humour running throughout, from the Lacey’s despair at their granddaughter’s rather modern choice of boyfriend, to the plot to trick Hercule Poirot devised by the children of the house. In the foreword, Christie explains that the story was inspired by the Christmases she spent at Abney Hall. “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding,” she wrote, “is an indulgence of my own, since it recalls to me, very pleasurably, the Christmases of my youth.” There’s much talk in the book of fears that the traditions of the season are slowly being forgotten, which is entirely untrue, of course. For me, there is nothing more festive than sitting by a fire with a Christie mystery in one hand and a mince pie in the other. Bella Mackie is the author of What a Way to Go (Borough) Mick Herron Uncivil Seasons by Michael Malone This is a crime novel whose opening sentences always put me in a Christmas mood: “Two things don’t happen very often in Hillston, North Carolina. We don’t get much snow, and we hardly ever murder one another.” Poignant, funny, romantic and chilling, the first of Michael Malone’s Hillston trilogy felt like an instant classic, and still does. Mick Herron is the author of The Secret Hours (Baskerville) Photograph: HarperCollins Val McDermid A Candle for Christmas & Other Stories by Reginald Hill Between demanding visitors and Christmas TV specials, it can be a struggle to find the time and space to get stuck into a novel at Yuletide, even an old favourite. So for me, short stories have become my festive go-to. For a traditional flavour of the season, I find it hard to beat A Candle for Christmas. It brings together a baker’s dozen of Reginald Hill’s excellent short stories, not just featuring his regular pairing of Dalziel and Pascoe but also showing Hill’s range as a writer, including an outing to Italy for Sherlock Holmes. Warm, humorous and invariably clever with it, he deserves not to be forgotten. Val McDermid is the author of Past Lying (Sphere) Vaseem Khan The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson I first read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo over a blistering hot Christmas in Mumbai some 15 years ago – a gift from my mother-in-law. (Make of that what you will.) Granted, the book doesn’t exactly sing yuletide, but I consider it an honorary entry into the Christmas thriller canon. A wealthy businessman employs a journalist and a kick-ass cyberhacker to investigate the decades-old disappearance of his great-niece. The story takes place on a tiny island, gripped by winter’s icy fingers, with Christmas making a guest appearance. The characters exhibit peak Scandi moodiness alongside knitted sweaters, swirling glasses of cognac, random sex, and the sort of family infighting that makes Succession look like a teddy bears’ picnic. Vaseem Khan is the author of City of Destructio & Stoughtonn (H&S ) Sarah Perry The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle In The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, Sherlock Holmes solves the problem of a stolen gemstone turning up inside a Christmas goose. This is perhaps the most festive Holmes adventure, but really they’re all ideal Christmas reading: the London smog pressed against the Baker Street windows, and the pacing of distraught aristocrats and butchers; Holmes idly playing his violin in his dressing gown while an irritated Watson examines the outcome of an experiment involving rare poisons. My copy of the Complete Sherlock Holmes is an immense paperback showing the great detective in profile wreathed in smoke. This is the edition I borrowed from my father when I was young, and never gave back. Some girls dream of romance: I dreamed of rooms in London, a series of murders only I could solve, and a best friend almost – but not quite – as clever as I. I’m not yet sure which Holmes stories I’ll read by the fire with my cat (Mrs Hudson) on my lap. I know their solutions by heart, which is what makes them really suited to Christmas. Life contains enough nasty surprises: at this time of year I want a book I can rely on, as surely as I can rely on my mum’s mince pies. Sarah Perry is the author of Enlightenment (Vintage) Janice Hallett The Long Shadow by Celia Fremlin Newly widowed Imogen finds herself hosting an impromptu Christmas gathering, where at least one guest has a distinctly unfestive agenda. Meanwhile, a mysterious phone caller insists that, far from dying in a car crash, her husband was murdered … and that Imogen herself did it. As Christmas stories go, Celia Fremlin’s 1975 classic is by no means the most cheerful, but I like festive reading to stir up the dark side of the season. I was six in 75. My family Christmas was full of adults over whom two world wars hung, practically entwined with the flammable tinsel, while a younger generation could see little cheer in the future. This sense of foreboding would eventually explode into the punk movement, but not quite yet. I discovered Fremlin only recently, but it’s precisely the time in which she was writing that resonates so strongly with me: she captures the postwar era of my childhood so well. Weird as it may seem, it is the sense of dark familiarity that draws me in time and again. Janice Hallett is the author of The Christmas Appeal (Viper) Sophie Hannah Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie The Lee family reunion on Christmas Eve is not a happy occasion – and then what little peace there has been is shattered by a deafening crash. Family members soon find the tyrannical patriarch, Simeon Lee, dead in a pool of blood. But when Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, offers to help, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. This is the perfect novel to remind you that you’re probably having a much jollier Christmas than the characters in it! The cast, a dysfunctional extended family, make for a fascinating group of suspects, and the solution is one of Christie’s top-tier, high-concept memorable ones. The clues are expertly placed, though more than usually unobtrusive. The joy of this novel is in rereading it and seeing how perfectly it’s set up from the start. Sophie Hannah is the author of Silent Night (HarperCollins) Abir Mukherjee The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett What is the festive season without a dose of mayhem and murder? Even Dashiell Hammett, the godfather of LA noir, got in on the act – sending his husband and wife pairing, Nick and Nora Charles, all the way from sunny California to the cold of a New York Christmas, where despite Nick’s best efforts, they’re pulled into investigating the disappearance of scientist Clyde Wynant, who on account of not being a fan of pies, is known as the Thin Man. Why do I love this book? Because it has everything: crime, glamour, suspense, mystery and the sharp, witty dialogue that is Hammett’s trademark. At its heart, though, is the chemistry and repartee between husband and wife, and at a time of year when nerves are often frayed by the appearance of extended family, this is especially charming. It’s a tonic when set against the usual Christmas crime fare of English country houses and murdered marquises, which, like too much Christmas pudding, can leave you with indigestion. Go on. Add The Thin Man to your Christmas diet. You can thank me later. Abir Mukherjee is the author of Hunted (Vintage) Oskar Jensen The Rector of Veilbye by Steen Steensen Blicher Some might contend that a 10,000-word novella by a Danish parson, written in 1829, is a wilfully esoteric choice for a Christmas read. And they’d be right. Yet still I urge you to read this short story, the original Nordic noir. It’s the perfect antidote to the schmaltz of Hallmark films and the cosiness of Christie. Instead we have the stuff of winter nights: a fallible narrator, a cold rural landscape, the machinations of a devious evil, bent on bringing down the true and the just. Our guide is the local magistrate, in love with the rector’s daughter, Mette. Her father is a good but wrathful man of God, a failing that will undo all three of them when a murder charge is brought against him. Settle in for one of the great twists in all crime fiction. With its austere Lutheran atmosphere, dug-up corpses and spectral revelations, it evokes two of my favourite festive canons: the films of Ingmar Bergman, and the ghost stories of MR James. Best read snuggled up beside a dark and tree-tapped window with a dram of aquavit. Oskar Jensen is the author of Helle & Death (Profile) Jane Casey 4.50 from Paddington by Agatha Christie (HarperCollins) I’m not sure why Agatha Christie and Christmas go together like mince pies and brandy butter – maybe it’s something to do with the age-old mid-winter desire to snuggle down, eat high-calorie food and think about murdering your family. One of my favourites to reread around Christmas is 4.50 from Paddington, featuring the inimitable Miss Marple. It begins with a woman who is thoroughly frazzled from Christmas shopping, boarding a train to pay a visit to Miss Marple. As one train passes another, a blind flies up in the window opposite hers and she sees a man strangling a woman in an otherwise empty carriage. Mrs McGillicuddy may be tired and distracted, but she knows what she saw. However, when the police investigate there’s no body, and elderly women are all too easy to dismiss, as Miss Marple knows. She is physically frail in this post-war Christie, but her mind is as sharp as ever, and with the help of a young woman named Lucy Eyelesbarrow she identifies not only who died, but who killed her and why. Christmas is part of the story rather than the point of it – despite the country-house setting and a large cast of family members, this is not the grand Edwardian world of 17 courses for dinner and a fleet of servants. Instead, the modern world of suburban sprawl rises around the estate like a tide and staving off decline is harder by the day. However, the mystery is one of Christie’s best, with characters who feel exceptionally real and even a hint of romance. There’s a breathtaking little sleight of hand near the end where someone does something that gives them away completely – but you’ll never, ever spot it. Jane Casey is the author of The Outsider (HarperCollins) Charlotte Philby Carol by Patricia Highsmith My favourite Patricia Highsmith novel, Carol (published in 1952 as The Price of Salt), is delicious Christmas reading. It opens in a New York City department store in the throes of the festive season – the setting is inspired by the author’s time in a sales job in Manhattan,“vaguely depressed and short of money”, after finishing Strangers on a Train – and tells the story of a young woman named Therese, who falls for a glamorous, bored older housewife named Carol. Laced with Highsmith’s signature threat and unease, it is at once a smart, escapist thriller, and a claustro­phobic, unsettling love story. Deemed shocking at the time, it still packs a punch today. Charlotte Philby is the author of Dirty Money, published by John Murray in February. Kia Abdullah The Hunting Party by Lucy Foley In the remote Scottish wilderness, a group of old friends gather at a luxury hunting lodge to celebrate New Year’s Eve. Spirits are initially high, buoyed by champagne and truffles, but soon the weather turns hostile – and the friends turn on each other. The Hunting Party is a modern twist on the locked-room mystery and is achingly atmospheric. The wind is “a long, melodramatic howl down the chimney” and the surface of the loch outside is “clouded, blind, scarred by ice”. I read the novel in a cosy cottage in Richmond, North Yorkshire, where the wind outside was fittingly loud. The story may be darker than normal Christmas fare, but it’s perfect for wintry evenings. Kia Abdullah is the author of Those People Next Door (HQ) Jonny Sweet Hangover Square by Patrick Hamilton Although it begins on Christmas Day, this is not a festive book by any traditional measure. As we meet George Harvey Bone he is entering one of his “dead” moods, a dissociative state during which his brain shuts down and he is consumed by the need to kill. With all due respect to my family, I have had a number of Christmas Days like that, too. Bone spends his conscious hours drinking excessively in Earl’s Court. He is also quite wretchedly attempting to win the affections of Netta Longdon, an out of work actor with a soft spot for fascists, who ruthlessly manipulates his advances for money and his proximity to a powerful theatrical agent. During one of these moods he plans to murder her and has no memory of this when he comes to. Hamilton started writing the book on Christmas Day 1939, a few months after war had been declared. We want the very best for Bone but we know, or suspect, that it may all be too late. It is a gripping, dire entertainment, and a possibly unique achievement in capturing so compellingly what it felt like in London on the precipice of the second world war. And a Happy New Year! Jonny Sweet is the author of The Kellerby Code (Faber) Lucy Foley The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie The Sittaford Mystery has so much I look for in a wintry whodunnit. There is that cosy, or claustrophobic, feeling of everyone stuck inside as the weather rages. There’s the picture postcard blanket of snow covering everything. Then we have the past crimes and buried secrets coming to the surface and an escaped criminal loose on the moor. We even have skis! This is Christie in 1931, carving out a niche for herself as one of the very best in the business: Poirot and Marple aren’t even on the scene yet and, much as I love them both, it feels all the more fraught for the absence of one of these beloved and infallible detectives. I’ll certainly be reading it again this year by a crackling fire with a Marple-approved glass of cherry brandy. Lucy Foley is the author of The Midnight Feast (HarperCollins)
Author: Sophie Hannah. Ian Rankin. Bella Mackie. Val Mcdermid. Sarah Perry.
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