Review: Great psychological thriller!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 14, 2013
In 1975 at the tender age of ten, Merrie Callahan was abducted by a Santa in a department store in Hulis, Missouri. With her parents and the locals, plus the police all searching for her, she was finally found by Sheriff Skip Carmichael on Christmas Day. She was badly hurt, in a catatonic state, covered in blood, but she was alive. But for all the years following, she remained at age ten in her mind, while growing into womanhood…When Special Agent Constance Mandalay arrived in Hulis three days before Christmas thirty five years later, she was met by Sheriff Carmichael. She was following in the footsteps of four other FBI agents who had come to investigate the phenomenon which had been occurring every Christmas for the past seven years. Mandalay couldn’t understand why past agents’ reports were missing, why any reports she could find had very little information in them. Something strange was happening, she was uneasy; would she find the answers in this unusual case?This psychological thriller was brilliant! A novella which was extremely hard to put down with creepy twists and turns, and a gripping ending which left me wanting more! I discovered in the author notes at the end that this novella spawned the Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novels, in which the “rest of the story” is told in "In the Bleak Midwinter". I will have to pick that one up very soon now! I certainly have no hesitation in recommending this novella highly!