Novella designed for a single sitting, and best consumed that way if you can. Split between a diary from 1989 and its reader thirty years later, The Christmas Guest is a quick and cumulative semi-gothic crime piece that pays for all that came before with its quite satisfying ending.

The diary frame is imperfect, because it's ostensibly written by an American teenager but it comes across as more of a wide-eyed English girl, but The Christmas Guest is a nimble thrill for the festive season.

(3.5)