A Christmas Killing

by Richard Montanari

Genres: Holiday books; Police Procedurals

Synopsis

Meet Detective Kevin Byrne, rising star of the Philadelphia police force. Christmas Eve, 1988: Partnered with streetwise veteran Frankie Sheehan, Byrne is called to investigate the brutal assault of a young woman in a crime-ridden neighborhood, The Devil's Pocket. There, with the rest of the city hunkered down in their holiday celebrations, relentless rookie Byrne must step out from his partner's shadow to outwit a terrifying predator. It's the beginning of a long career for Byrne, who will revisit the same vicious streets in Richard Montanari's beloved Byrne and Balzano series. "A Christmas Killing" is a short story that includes an excerpt from Richard Montanari's terrifying Byrne and Balzano novel, Shutter Man.

Release date: November 10, 2015

Publisher: Mulholland Books

Print pages: 31

Sample

The first time Detective Kevin Francis Byrne heard a reggae version of “The Little Drummer Boy” he was standing next to a pool of blood.

Each subsequent Christmas, whenever he heard any version of the song, it would remind him of this night—the gouache of lights on the street seen through the fogged windows, the mélange of long-boiled coffee and powdered sugar, the tang of road salt.

The heart of the memory, the shadow that crossed his dreams, was the young woman.

It was her blood.

It was Christmas Eve.

  

Since becoming a gold badge Detective Kevin Byrne had become known, division-wide, as a comer. As much as he shunned the limelight, he could find no argument against it. In the past year he had closed a number of mid- to high-profile cases, had twice made the newspapers, had twice stood behind both the commissioner and the mayor on TV.

Byrne knew that this reputation was partly due—in great part, he would tell anyone interested—to his being teamed with a lifer named Frankie Sheehan. Sheehan was a Two-Streeter in his late fifties, a family man who got married his senior year in high school, an outdoorsman who tied marabou jig lures in his spare time, sold them, and donated the proceeds to the Police Athletic League.

The running joke was that Francis Xavier Sheehan had been a cop so long that his badge number was in Roman numerals.

But now, in this brightly lit bodega, he looked every minute of his fifty-nine years. Maybe more. Sheehan had dropped twenty pounds in the past six months; his skin was sallow and soft, had a yellowish. . .