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The Present - D S Devlin



Description

 12 deadly gifts, one killer on a Christmas countdown…
On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me… this is one deadly Christmas that you can’t forget.
The police are baffled by the ‘Santa’ killer, who sends his intended victims gruesome presents based on the twelve days of Christmas. When a young journalist receives a mutilated bird in the post, it’s a race against time to find the killer…


Review

After reviewing the "other" book called The Present a few days ago I've now read the one I intend to. My review for the chicklit version has gone up on the page for this crime novel though!

I'm not one for true crime and gory details and so those aspects of this book did not appeal to me, but it is written in such a homely way that it actually didn't seem as if those things were too real. This enabled me to just carry on reading and enjoy the whodunnit aspect of the novel.

It's only taken me a couple of readings to get through, as once I was hooked and I was so sure of who the "Santa" killer was I had to know I was right! At some point I did think no one would write a plot this obvious and so changed my mind, changed it back again and finally I had no idea!

Just to make it clear this is not someone murdering Santas', but someone using the Christmas song of 12 days of Christmas as clues to taunt the police each year, before eventually murdering a victim. As it takes place during Christmas he is dubbed the "Santa" killer.

You do need to suspend some disbelief that Anna the journalist would put herself in so much danger and be prepared to meet the "Santa" killer one on one. She does come out of it as one gutsy lady despite being petrified, and I was swept along with her descriptive exploits.

If this sounds like your sort of thing and you are not looking for the next big crime writer then it's a good read.

I'm giving this book 4 out of 5 stars. My thanks to Netgalley for a copy of the book for review.

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