Review: Another winner from Annis Ward Jackson
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 11 18, 2010
This stand-alone mystery by Annis Ward Jackson is not really a Christmas book per se.  The solving of the crime must be done by Christmas so another person doesn't die as they have in the previous 4 years just before the holiday.  Because of that, there's a Christmas atmosphere throughout the book.  The protagonist is the police chief in a very small town in North Carolina.  He was previously seriously injured by terrorists when he was in the Marines Military Police; he still has pain in his leg and walks with a limp.  I got the impression he was still healing mentally and thinks that this will be an easy job in a quiet town.  However, in his new office, he finds an envelope in the files with four unsolved murders in it.  Chief Crawford determines a pattern of the murders in that they all occured within the week before Christmas of the last four years, and he knows another murder will occur on Christmas this year if he doesn't solve these crimes.  Does he solve these murders on time?  That's for the reader to discover.  I would like to see this book be the start of another series, not to replace the Rachel Myers mysteries but in addition to them (I don't want the Rachel Myers series to ever end!).  Chief Crawford is an interesting loner, and I think Ms. Jackson can do a lot more with him if she wants.  I read everything this author writes because I enjoy her writing.  It's easy, warm, and very descriptive and I just love it.  I hope she continues writing for the rest of my lifetime!