The Usual Santas: A Collection of Soho Crime Christmas Capers

Written by Stephanie Barron, James R. Benn, Cara Black and 15 more

Narrated by Jonathan Yen, John Keating, Barbara Caruso and 5 more

Eighteen delightful holiday stories by a colorful lineup of your favorite Soho Crime authors

This captivating collection, which features bestselling and award-winning authors, contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season.

Nine mall Santas must find the imposter among them. An elderly lady seeks peace from her murderously loud neighbors at Christmastime. A young woman receives a mysterious invitation to Christmas dinner with a stranger. Niccolò Machiavelli sets out to save an Italian city. Sherlock Holmes’s one-time nemesis Irene Adler finds herself in an unexpected tangle in Paris while on a routine espionage assignment. Jane Austen searches for the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s stolen diamonds. These and other adventures in this delectable volume will whisk readers away to Christmases around the globe, from a Korean War POW camp to
a Copenhagen refugee squat, from a palatial hotel in 1920s Bombay to a crumbling mansion in Havana.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Recorded Books, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 24, 2017
• ISBN: 9781501938535

Reviews for The Usual Santas

[grandpahobo_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The stories are all very good, but some of them are quite dark.

[ellenh_28 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I really only got half way through this book ( pg 315). While I mostly liked it, I got tired of it and had many others waiting to be read. The cover makes it look like a light Christmas read...it's a little darker than that. I tried it because of the inclusion of one of Helen Tursten's stories in it. Maybe I'll try again next Christmas.

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The noir section "Silent Night" was way too noir for me; I'm not a big fan of noir at any time but the juxtaposition of noir with Christmas made the darkness more extreme.

One aspect of the book that I found intriguing is the number of stories set outside the U.S. (and not just in England either!): Sweden, Korea (both North & South), India, Thailand, Denmark to name some of them.

[ethel55_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

With a cheerful Santa on the cover, it would be easy to mistake this for a fun holiday collection of stories. It becomes apparent right away, as Lovesey mentions in the forward, that the holidays see an uptick in crime and these short tales detail them. There were a lot of great stories, a couple a little longer than I was expecting, but they were very good overall. I liked the wide variety of tales, in both setting and time period. I follow a few of these Soho authors quite closely, and enjoyed getting a chance to dip my toe into the style of many others.

[romonko · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I enjoyed this book of Christmas mysteries edited by Peter Lovesey, who is an author I really enjoy. These stories took me all over the world and to different historical settings which included a 1920's Bombay palatial hotel, a Korean prisoner of war camp and other more modern settings such as France, China and England. As always, when I read a short story collection, I like to pick a favourtie and in this one my favourite one was a story wrriten by Mick Herron called The Usual Santas, which is the name of this book as well. Reading about these delightful department store Santas who work in an ultra-modern mall called Whiteoaks, which is located in a suburb near the north part of London, was a wonderful and enjoyable surprise. The story is funny, satirical, and it will warm the cockles of your heart. Lots of these stories are little gems, and you must read the book, Let the magic carry you off to parts unknown.

[cathyskye · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

There's nothing like a good mix of crime and Christmas to put you in the holiday spirit, and Soho Crime has come up with a winning collection of short stories for a wide range of reading preferences.

These eighteen stories are written by bestselling and award-winning authors. With crime and Christmas as their common themes, they range from laugh-filled to heartwarming to the most hardboiled of holiday noir. They're also set all over the world: Sweden, England, South Korea, Thailand, Cuba, Ireland, the United States-- and the list goes on.

These stories do run the gamut of styles, and some of the authors contributed something different from what their fans may be used to. For example, Gary Corby, who writes the wonderful Athenian mysteries set in ancient Greece, has a very different subject and setting this time. (I do enjoy it when my favorite authors "branch out" from time to time.)

There are so many gems in The Usual Santas, but I will at least mention the ones that shone the brightest for me: Helene Tursten's "An Elderly Lady Seeks Peace at Christmas Time," Mick Herron's "The Usual Santas," Ed Lin's "Martin," and Colin Cotterill's "There's Only One Father Christmas, Right?" And I feel guilty for not listing them all.

There's also an added bonus to reading a short story collection like this. Have you wondered if you'd like these authors' books? Then this collection is an excellent starting point for you. Don't be surprised if you find yourself heading to the bookstore or library with a long list of new authors after reading The Usual Santas. Oh, the wonderful reading you have in store!

[rowingrabbit · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I love anthologies like this. When your schedule is crazy & you find it difficult to make any progress on a full-meal book, these provide the perfect snack. Here we have 18 stories with an interesting theme. All are set around the Xmas season. But that’s about all they have in common as the authors took the brief & ran with it.

Some are funny, some are gritty. Settings include different centuries & locales such as Seoul, Bangkok, Ireland, America & Cuba. And genres run the gamut from psychological to full on action. There are even a few names you’ll recognize such as Jane Austen & Sherlock Holmes.

Like most collections some are great, most are good & a couple are meh. But what falls into those categories will vary from reader to reader. My favourites were those by Helene Tursten (do NOT mess with a Swedish granny), Teresa Dovalpage (great characters, set in Cuba), Tod Goldberg (poignant tale of a lonely sheriff’s final days on the job) & Martin Limón (American military police in 1970’s Korea). Two of these authors I’d never read before & therein lies the gift. It’s great chance to try out new (to you) authors & editor Peter Lovesey has included each writer’s back list at the end so you can easily select something meatier by whoever catches your fancy.

It’s a great book to take on your daily commute or leave on the bedside table. Just keep it handy for those times when you have a few minutes to escape to another time or country.