Cam Winter’s Discontent

Two years ago, Mysterious Press published a novella by Andrew Klavan, When Christmas Comes: A Yuletide Mystery. I always enjoy Klavan, but I particularly relished this book, not least for its beguiling protagonist, Cameron Winter, who (as a very young man) served in a shadowy U.S. intelligence agency, an experience that left him with a burden of guilt and moral confusion. When I finished it, I found myself hoping for a sequel, but that seemed like a longshot: In a note at the end of the book, Klavan thanked the crime fiction supremo Otto Penzler, head of Mysterious Press, for suggesting that he write a novella for the Christmas season, so it sounded like a one-off.