The Scare Salon

We know that the baddie is a huge monster right from the jump because, in the cold open, we’re inside the well-appointed New York City apartment of a prominent plastic surgeon named Dr. Donald McKinley, who lives there with his wife Amanda and daughter Amy. It’s several days before Christmas, and the place is all decked out; there’s a sweet scene with the doctor putting his daughter to bed, and then all hell breaks loose.

Even though the apartment is on the eighth floor and has very tight security, something manages to get in and chow down on Amanda, much to the horror of her husband, who witnesses a very large, hulking figure in a black cloak eating part of his wife.

The long and short of it is that the doctor and his daughter survive the carnage. Still, authorities believe that Dr. McKinley might be the one responsible for the horrific crime, mainly because pieces of Amanda are later found in his stomach. Daughter Amy tells police a monster killed her mommy, but of course, they don’t believe her.

See, it turns out that for the past ten years, NYC has been plagued by what authorities suspect is a cult of Satanists they’ve dubbed the Christmas Cannibals. Every year, in the weeks approaching Christmas Eve, the residences of largely wealthy families are somehow breached despite security measures. Every member of the family is slaughtered, dismembered, and partially eaten, except for one, who is inevitably found to have choked on chunks of his or her family, suggesting that this person was either a member of this mysterious cannibalistic cult or was somehow forced to do the bidding of said cult. Though investigators have been working diligently on the case for a decade, they’ve never managed to figure out exactly what’s going on or who the members of this alleged cult are. The murders continue for more than two weeks every year but stop before midnight on Christmas Eve, not starting up again until the following December.

This particular crime is a bit different, though, since the little girl survived unharmed, leading the police to hypothesize that the cult was interrupted in their grim work.

It’s here that we’re introduced to our two main protagonists, both NYPD detectives, who we’ll be following for the rest of the story as they try to get to the bottom of this grisly mystery. First, we have Ilsa Dunbar, a cynical, tough-as-nails New York native who is small but in excellent physical shape and no slouch with a firearm either. She was left a beautiful brownstone by her rich parents, which she lives in alone (just as she likes it), and she absolutely hates Christmas, for reasons that will become clear later on.

Then there’s Andy Alvilda, who is originally from Texas but moved to California and worked for the LAPD for years before relocating to the Big Apple. Known by the other officers as “Hollywood” and often teased for his cowboy boots, he’s a tall, devastatingly handsome, and good-natured sort who’s into ballroom dancing and is a real charmer with the ladies. He’s also a good cop: honest, compassionate, and excellent at his job. He loves Christmas and actually believes in the paranormal somewhat, as his mother was psychic and was never wrong about any of her predictions, at least according to him.

Because these two partners are sort of opposites, there’s a lot of affectionate sniping between them which is really entertaining, and you just know that romance is likely going to bloom at some point. It sort of does, actually, but it’s not really a huge part of the story, which is mostly centered on the monster and the numerous murders. I will say, though, that even though the main characters are playing into buddy-cop movie stereotypes a bit, they’re still really fleshed out and relatable, and I found myself liking them and their interactions so much that I legitimately got worried for their safety when shit started to hit the fan.

So at this first murder scene at the McKinley place, the cops note a couple of interesting things. One is a sort of figure eight symbol, some form of which has been found at every one of the previous scenes. Then there’s a busted-out plate glass window, which looks for all the world as though something very large was hurled through it to plummet eight stories to the ground. On the ground, though, Dunbar and Alvilda don’t find any sign of what might have fallen, other than some broken glass and a weird mark in the snow that sort of looks like a massive hoof print. Hmmm.

Because no one is really sure what the figure eight thing is supposed to represent, Ilsa and Andy eventually end up at the high-end but secretive antique shop of Russian immigrants Olek and Elena Apostol, which has a ridiculous amount of security, even considering the expensive items it holds. Olek in particular seems to know something about the mythology of the supposed cult, but Ilsa isn’t sure how seriously she should take him because one of the prize displays in his store is what he claims is the remains of Santa’s sleigh. Yes, the real Santa Claus exists, he says, though Olek refers to him by the name Ded Moroz.

As the story goes on, Ilsa’s skepticism becomes ever more tested as the murders continue and reveal weirder and weirder details that suggest the killer might not be human at all. Because of the hoof print I mentioned earlier, you might be thinking it’s Krampus, but it ain’t; it’s actually something far more sinister that ties in with ancient Norse legends.

The Sleigh is a delightful thrill ride from start to finish; it sucks you right in from the very first page and doesn’t let up until the epic climax. The characters are loads of fun and get you emotionally invested in the story, so much so that you’re genuinely distraught when something bad happens to them. The gore is plentiful and suitably fucked-up, and the descriptions of the murder scenes, as well as that of the monster, are so vivid you can almost smell them. If you want to read an action-oriented, bloody Christmas horror with a side serving of buddy cop comedy and a truly terrifying monster that just may be indestructible, then this is definitely the book for you. It’s a perfect balance of humor and Yuletide butchery that has a real holiday heart at its sanguine center.

Until next time, keep it creepy (and Christmasy), my friends.