MURDER AT THE CHRISTMAS EMPORIUM

A VIP shopping trip goes hellishly awry.

Seven lucky shoppers have been hand-chosen by owner Montagu Verity to attend an exclusive Christmas Eve event at Verity’s Emporium, a storied London shop known throughout the U.K. for its extravagant holiday displays. At first blush, the store seems a fairyland fulfilling all their childhood Christmas fantasies: crisp gingerbread, decadent hot chocolate, exquisite handmade toys, even indoor sledding. But a strange sleepiness falls over the group, and they awaken to a nightmare. They’re locked in the store, they’ve surrendered their phones at the door, and it becomes obvious that someone intends to kill them one by one. Cordani toggles back and forth between glimpses of the prospective victims’ earlier lives—as children, at university, and early in their careers—and their current plight. The problem is that at no time do any of her retrospective thumbnail sketches give readers much reason to wish for the grown-up characters’ survival. Even Merry, stuck in a dead-end job and hopelessly in love with co-worker Ross, is foolishly controlling, and TV celebrity Fran, tortured by a secret Cordani teases for more 100 pages before revealing as the most obvious thing possible, is shallow and self-serving. When bad things happen to good people, justice cries out for an explanation. But when bad things happen to bad people, well…why the hell not?

A joyless Yuletide tale offers little to celebrate.