As I’m celebrating the third anniversary of publishing my festive novella, A Killer Christmas, I decided to write something about why I chose to write a Christmas crime special in the Allensbury Mysteries series.

A Christmas crime novel works so well because it turns the ‘peace and joy and goodwill to all people’ message on its head. Wherever there are jolly Christmas celebrations, you know there’s someone lurking who missed the memo on all this. The juxtaposition of a murder against the backdrop of carols, tinsel and fake snow is a powerful image, subverting the cheery nature of Christmas into something much darker.

And, with a quick search of any book buying platform, you can get your hands on festive murder mysteries galore (many with the same or similar title, but there’s only so many ways to use Christmas, killer, festive and mystery).

So, without further ado, let’s look at ways that authors use Christmas in their crimes.

Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

In this book, the Lee family has gathered for Christmas. No one really wants to be there, but the patriarch of the family has insisted. He knows everyone will be miserable and he’s enjoying that. Whether the killer would have struck anyway, we don’t know, but the Christmas gathering gives the perfect opportunity. Agatha concocts the perfect plan where everyone was in the house at the time of the murder and so they come under suspicion when the police and Poirot begin to investigate.

Susi Holliday’s The Deaths of December

In this book the device used is an Advent calendar. Instead of robins, Jesus in a stable or a cheeky bit of chocolate, there’s a crime scene photograph. And the police team have no clue about where the crime scene is or the identity of the victim. This is such a clever way to turn a cheery Christmas favourite – I mean, who doesn’t love an Advent calendar? – into something more sinister. I come back to this book every December because I love this way of using darkness against something so loved.

My own book, A Killer Christmas

I know it’s not really cool to use yourself in this, but I’m really quite proud of this idea. Every year in November, you start to see adverts for Santa’s Grotto or window display openings. I’m a big fan of ‘what if’ and so I thought ‘what would happen if the curtains opened and someone is missing out on the Christmas joy?’. Setting it in a department store at a time when there should have been no one inside adds a certain bit of locked room but also creates a good pool of suspects. Once my crime reporter Emma starts to investigate, she finds there’s a bit more to our victim than meets the eye. 

So, festive crime fiction provides an antidote to Christmas joy, safely within the pages. If you want to escape the peace and joy, then it’s the perfect place to hide. And if you have any recommendations, drop them in the comments below. I’m always looking for new excuses to escape into a world where Christmas isn’t how you expect it.

If you want to check out my Christmas crackers, you can find them on my Bookshop.org page.