The Night Before Christmas (Rose Red Rhymes- DCI Cass Rose Short Thrillers)

Author: Saffina Desforges

3.5 out of 5 stars

It’s Christmas Eve and Cassandra “Red” Rose is ready for a break from work to spend time with her family. But when she arrives at the department store for their visit with Santa, she’s asked to help because a child made a serious accusation against the Santa. Realizing she knows the man playing Santa, she has to piece together the truth.

This book was fine. It’s very Christmas themed with children visiting Santa, and the book opens with Red reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas”. It is a short and fast read, and we get a lot of scene jumps between all the characters so we see what everyone is doing.

However, this was more of a slice of life story with family shenanigans than any kind of mystery or crime story. Red doesn’t actually investigate anything. She’s approached by the store manager because he recognizes her from a previous case, and he was unsure about calling the police. She questions the suspect because she knows him, but she’s outside her jurisdiction so she turns him over to other officers.

A big negative for me was that, since I haven’t read the full length books, I was confused about everyone’s relationships and how everyone in the family was connected to each other. It would be easy to just slip a few words of explanation here and there instead of the reader having to piece it together.

Overall, this short story was just okay, which is why I’m rating it 3.5 out of 5 stars. I liked the characters, and they intrigued me enough that I might read one of the full length novels about Red.

Current price through Amazon Kindle: $0.99

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AFWXF46

(I do not benefit from the use of this link.)