Every year around the holidays, I'm
always on the lookout for new horror fiction that takes place during the
Christmas season, so when I saw Secret Santa by Andrew Shaffer making
the rounds on Instagram and Facebook, I knew it just had to be added to my
holiday reading list. It promised "horrific accidents," and what's
better than a mess of gore for Christmas, so I put everything else on hold to
see what secret Santa was keeping.
At the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to Lussi (pronounced Lucy) Meyer, an unemployed genre editor arriving at the imposing Blackwood-Patterson publishing house for a job interview. The head of the company, a stuffy, snooty old man, looks down his nose at Lussi when he learns she edited horror novels in previous position, and immediately dismisses her as not worth his time. They are a publisher of literary fiction, after all, and they have no interest in starting a genre line. As Lucy gathers up her things, Xavier Blackwood suffers a heart attack and later dies at the hospital. Since she was present when the old man keeled over, she felt it was her duty to check on him at the hospital, where she meets Digby Blackwood, Xavier's son, and learns that the old man has died. Seizing the opportunity to take advantage of the tragic situation, Lussi is able to score a job at Blackwood as a senior editor. It's only short term, as Digby plans to unload the company by the end of other year -- unless Lussi can find the next Stephen King, which just might save the company from the financial trash heap it is in.
From Day One, it is apparent that Lussi is not welcome, as the other employees, who have been with the company for a long time, are stand-offish, but it's as if destiny has placed Lussi at Blackwood. The holiday party is approaching, and Lussi discovers that there is already a present underneath the office Christmas tree with her name on it. Nobody expected her to be hired, so they are all as surprised as she is. But her coworkers continue to show their contempt for Lussi by pranking her. When the office Christmas party occurs and the gifts are handed out, Lussi is surprised by what was gifted to her, but she tells her coworkers the box is empty. The only one who knows differently is Digby, who was seated beside her when she opened the box. Then her coworkers start to become the victims of pranks themselves, but the pranks pulled on them are for more vicious than those perpetrated upon Lussi. Does Lussi's Secret Santa have anything to do with what's going on? Is it the gift? Or is somebody just trying to scare the new girl off?
While I was definitely caught up in the story and couldn't wait to see what happened next, I can't help but feel disappointed upon finishing it. It wasn't what I was expecting. To me, there were so many missed opportunities to deliver what the jacket copy implied -- horrific accidents. Oh, the accidents were there, but they weren't described to the extreme, rather, they were glossed over as if Shaffer had a fear of offending the more delicate of his readers. In short, I wanted more gore and the author didn't deliver. In fact, as I was reading, I couldn't help but make comparisons to The Legacy by John Coyne, where a group of strangers is gathered together by an aged benefactor, and one by one they are eliminated in a manner that emulates their worst fear when it comes to dying. And while Shaffer didn't deliver the splatter fest I had been hoping for, what he did deliver was a compelling supernatural mystery that some folks might find enjoyable. I might have found it enjoyable had I not gone in with preconceived expectations.
The other thing I found disappointing and somewhat unbelievable was Lussi's transition. Despite having been spoon-fed on tales of the European spooks and fairies by her grandmother, you never get the impression that she believes any of what she was told. It did ignite in her a love of horror, but Lussi comes across as being a sensible young woman who knows the difference between fantasy and reality, so when it comes time for her to learn the truth of what's going on, she's far too accepting of it. And she seems too eager to embrace her destiny. Granted, it was literally a life or death situation, but friendship only goes so far. I mean, I can understand taking a bullet for a friend, but what Lussi does is tantamount to selling her soul to the devil, and it makes you question her true intentions.
All that aside, would I recommend Secret Santa to a friend? Absolutely. Despite what I said above, it's not a bad book. In fact, it's a rather good supernatural mystery. But it's not what I was expecting. Is that the author's fault? Nope, it's mine, and I should have learned by now not to go into a book with preconceived expectations, but there are times you just can't help it. So if you want a good Christmas mystery with a supernatural slant, then by all means, grab yourself a copy and enjoy. But if you, like me, are looking to take a trip through a winter slaughter land where the snow is stained red with blood and intestines are strung from the trees, then skip this one and keep looking. If you have to find one, drop a line and let me know.
