Here’s what folks are saying about The Blood in Snowflake Garden. Links to the full reviews will be posted soon.
“Alan Lewis’s new twist on an old tale brings us a North Pole struggling
to retain its charm in the midst of labor disputes, volatile human-elf
relations, a discredited Santa, and now the murder of Santa’s right-hand man.
With a little grit and a lot of charm, The Blood in Snowflake Garden is
the perfect mix of mystery, mayhem, and magic.” – Jaden Terrell, Executive
Director of the Killer Nashville Crime Literature Conference and author of the Jared McKean mysteries
D. Alan Lewis’ debut novel, The Blood in Snowflake Garden, is a genre-blending mystery that whips up a veritable candy cane frappe of a whodunit.
Retired Inspector Max Sneed is a cynical prankster in self-imposed exile from the warmth and society of the North Pole. Rob Watson is a hip young journalist from London, selected by Santa Claus himself to reveal the secret city to a suspicious cold-war world.
But the North Pole isn’t a fairytale wonderland, it’s a real city, built around the industry of Christmas. It has real problems like elfish labor movements, strained international relations and the long shadow of corruption at the highest levels of government.
When Max is dragged out of retirement at Santa’s request, the journalist’s nose for clues earns him a place in the investigation of a most rare crime at the North Pole: murder. The victim is Vladimir Volsky, Premier of Santa’s city-state, killed by gunshot and discovered in the freshly-fallen snow of a garden plaza. But guns are forbidden at the North Pole, and there’s something amiss with the crime scene.
Together, they work their way through a cast of suspects including Mrs. Candi Claus, visiting American General Ralph Kirkland, and the leaders of the elfish rights groups including the E.L.U., E.E.R. and R.E.D. As the investigation continues, they find more clues and motives than a happy Christmas has cookies.
In a world where Santa Claus appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee and Russians have at least partial control of the North Pole, D. Alan Lewis’ tale dances through time. In the far reaches lie the origin of St. Nick himself. The first World War leads us through to the Cold War and the final decision to forbid Santa from entering United States territory. The tale is darkly nostalgic, somewhere between a supernatural mystery and the year you discovered there is no Santa Claus.
The Blood in Snowflake Garden stays true to the tropes of of its core genre, the mystery. But it’s also iced with urban fantasy and sprinkled with dime-store adventure. The prose is straight-forward and clippy, the characters iconically out-of-place and in the end, only a reveal at Kringle Castle with all the unusual suspects can close the tale. Logan L. Masterson: Examiner.com (Nashville, Tn) http://agonyzer.com/?p=404
Fans of Terry Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ will feel at home in Lewis’s ‘The Blood in Snowflake Garden’. - Poet and author Sam Smith
