Please be aware, there are spoilers as you read.
While not oblivious or immune to Christmas growing up, I have since become less celebratory. No, I’m not a complete Scrooge, but my preferred method of observance nowadays is far more passive. In fact, I’d much rather read about Christmas than partake — especially if that reading entails horror during the holidays. Hence my nocturnal activity on this particularly frosty evening: Patricia Windsor‘s 1991 novel The Christmas Killer.
As prolific as holiday horror is on screen, I find that novels are arguably better at conveying the seasonal disquiet that undercuts the rampant and forced cheeriness. And there is indeed something more provocative, at least to me, about the literary description of a Santa-clad maniac slaying someone than witnessing it. Mind you, there is no such character in The Christmas Killer; the tangible menace victimizing women is virtually unseen, much less wearing anything festive. So although no one resembling Mr. Claus is behind the recent carnage in Bethboro, Connecticut, they are leaving behind a Christmassy signature with every new corpse; a red poinsettia is the calling card for who the police have now dubbed… The Christmas Killer. Yeah, it’s not the most original or unexpected moniker, of course, but this book’s story isn’t all that unique, either.
Patricia Windsor may have been influenced by Twin Peaks, which premiered shortly before this novel’s release. An unassuming small town is rocked by a teenage girl’s murder, and one resident involved in the investigation is receiving cryptic visions from said victim. Sounds familiar. However, with this novel being aimed at young adults, naturally the main character is someone in the target demographic and not an FBI agent. Which brings us to Rosecleer “Rose” Potter, the adolescent adversary for the Christmas Killer.
This story’s analog for Laura Palmer is Nancy Emerson, and she disappeared around Thanksgiving. At first her vanishing act is treated as more of a nuisance than a concern, seeing as the folks of Bethboro “seemed annoyed” with how Nancy had “tainted” Thanksgiving. Even Rose doesn’t come across as too likable when she recounts that last stored memory of her missing classmate; on a day having what Rose described as “Thomas Hardy weather,” she remembered Nancy as “a cuddly piglet in her pink down jacket” and only spoke to the emotional, younger girl out of sheer politeness. Insincerity aside, Rose wasn’t completely dismissive. She, like everyone else her age, simply had her own life to be concerned with, and didn’t stop to consider this might be the last time she and Nancy would ever speak again.
They named him the Christmas Killer, because of what looked like his
trademark: leaving a red plastic poinsettia on his victims. That had been the
incongruous flower on Nancy’s pink jacket. One had been left with Cyn’s
body, too. Because of them, the police went back to the junkyard and found
the remains of a similar, if dirtier, flower where the skeleton had been. They
theorized that the skeleton girl had also been killed around Christmas.
Thankfully, The Christmas Killer doesn’t skimp on the characters, who each have discernible personalities, shortcomings, and desires. Admittedly, Rose herself is not so complex that she can’t be figured out within the first few chapters, but there is a welcome edge to her personality that only becomes sharper as the body-count grows. Then there is her fraternal twin brother, the equally quirky-named Jerram, who must have absorbed his sister’s penchant for eccentricity in the womb. As you come to find out sooner than later, he is prone to levity and secrets. Rounding out the Potter family are Rose and Jerram’s parents, Liz and Carl. More often than not, the folks in these kinds of books take a backseat as their offspring battle unusual threats, never the wiser or too helpful. Refreshingly, Liz and Carl Potter aren’t passive players or parentals; Mrs. Potter overcomes her first impression as an overbearing mother, and Mr. Potter doesn’t stand idly by as the townspeople ostracize his daughter.
With its family-oriented story, The Christmas Killer gives low priority to Rose’s best friend and love interest, respectively Grace and Daniel. Having said that, the two are agreeable enough in what few scenes they appear. Grace is the supportive type who takes everything in stride, namely Rose’s moodiness, and she only fades into the background because of her mother’s sudden susceptibility to town gossip. As for Daniel, he is ultimately here out of necessity; the quality of Windsor’s writing dips whenever she needs him to act as a red herring. The most interesting thing about Daniel is, perhaps, the possibility that he could channel Rose’s ESP via kiss.
Back then, the uncanny didn’t come up nearly as much as you would expect from books like The Christmas Killer. By and large other authors favored a grounded approach, whereas Windsor took after the likes of Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike. That comparison is understandable during the more flowery sections of the story. Nevertheless, the psychic element distinguishes this novel as well as evokes nostalgia for 1970s speculative fiction. And in contrast to any writer who would sooner choose ambiguity over certainty, Windsor embraced her heroine’s powers. Rose, on the other hand, was less inclined to take value in something that made her so different.
“Then let God help you,” she said hoarsely. “I’m sick of finding dead people. I’m not doing it anymore.”
The most conspicuous, not to mention pervasive, theme of The Christmas Killer is the loss of normalcy. That is first clear from the outset, where everyone is in denial about Nancy’s disappearance. Not because they refuse to believe she is dead — in their hearts, they knew the truth — but because they can’t begin to comprehend something so heinous and unnatural happening in their seemingly safe town. The pressure of peace at Christmas is ever-present, from the police to the church, and no one wants to upset it. Most of all, not Liz Potter, whose constant refusal to acknowledge and accept her daughter’s clairvoyance initially reads as quelling. Her near belligerent responses to the authorities taking Rose up on her offer to help, or her children secretly complying with the investigation, is unpleasant, yes, yet once you realize the root cause of her apprehension and disallowance, the mother’s desperate cling to conformity is more reasonable.
The subject of Rose’s class report being the Salem Witch Trials is not coincidental. These historical parallels never are in YA fiction, after all. And as Rose’s peculiar but integral part in the police work travels its way through Bethboro’s grapevine, and Nancy’s grieving mother lashes out during church service, the protagonist tells herself: “Tituba, Sarah Osburne, Sarah Good, I know now how you felt.” That is not the internal dialogue of a typically glib and self-absorbed teenager, either. Far from it, Rose has since realized she too can be persecuted. An attractive and affable girl from comfortable standing and bearing a previously undisputed reputation was now the town freak. She had, more or less, replaced the previous wearer of such crown, one Wallace Romola. Those she had trusted without hesitation all her life, including Grace’s mother, revealed their true colors in a trying situation, and that is always a hard lesson to learn at any age.
If The Christmas Killer does anything not so well, it would be the payoff. By which I mean, there is none once Rose has gone through the grueling and hypnotic, out-of-body trials to hone her power and find Nancy and the other girls’ murderer. The plot breadcrumbs, regarding the twin leitmotif and Rose’s suspicious dance teacher Muriel, were laid out early enough to form a proper guess. Or, at the very least, who that murderer is related to in the cast. This is a case where the culprit, Muriel’s estranged brother, wasn’t anyone actively present in the story, and the neglected clues to his identity turn out to be more silly than clever. On the flip side, not making the assailant be someone close to the main character, and accepting that they can act perfectly sane until the mask is off, is better and less tropey.
A reader would have to be cold-hearted to not sympathize with a vulnerable teen who wants to help her fellow man, yet her type of help is feared, ridiculed, and prone to shunning within her community. The conflicted Rose momentarily shirking her moral responsibility, much to the chagrin of her brother who wishes he could be as beneficial, is relatable. And when everything is said and done, and I get past this story’s imperfections, I still have to admire Patricia Windsor for how she captured the spirit of Christmas. The author emphasized the essential and oft forgotten need for selfless giving at this time of year, albeit in her own dark and tragic way. ■
Tales from the Paulside 
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