by Mark Edwards
Part of The Magpies
First published 2025
Noel and Dani move into their new home just before Christmas, ready to throw themselves into the festivities. The street looks ideal: welcoming neighbors, houses decked with lights, a warm community feel. They go all in with lavish presents, a beautiful tree, and outdoor decorations. Then the first anonymous package appears on their doorstep. Then another. Someone is leaving gifts, and no one is admitting to it. Worse, Noel and Dani start to feel watched. The neighbors seem friendly enough, but they share an odd fixation on a notorious killer held at the women's prison nearby. When tragedy hits at a Christmas party, the couple stops wondering about their street and starts digging into who is targeting them. The closer they get to answers, the clearer it becomes that knowing the truth carries its own dangers. Set in the world of the million-copy bestselling novel The Magpies, this standalone winter thriller wraps a tight, twisting plot inside the decorations and goodwill of the holiday season, then pulls the whole thing apart.
Genres: mystery, crime, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, thriller
Vibes: atmospheric, dark, fast-paced, suspenseful, twisted, unsettling
Tropes: mystery-unraveling, paranoia-and-surveillance, secrets-and-deception, unreliable-community
Setting: suburban-street, women's-prison
Period: Christmas, contemporary
219 pages · Kindle Edition · Penguin
Content warnings: murder, violence