The thriller short story collection *Deadly Gifts* has made a surprise entry at No. 10 on the hardcover bestseller list (Media Control).
This will primarily be because "Simon Beckett" is on the title and the cover also resembles a new David Hunter thriller.
In reality, however, it is a collection of mini-thrillers dealing with the theme of "Christmas," and to which I had the honor of contributing a story alongside Simon Beckett, Friedrich Ani, and Linwood Barclay.
Anyone expecting a new Beckett will probably be disappointed, just like many Amazon reviewers.
However, those who enjoy good mini-thrillers might get their money's worth with the book.
The Amazon editorial team writes the following about the quality of the overall volume:
From the Amazon.de editorial team:
In a way, Tödliche Gaben is a bit of a rip-off. The cover, both in its design and in the font size of the author names listed on it, suggests that the book is a new novel by the British bestselling author Simon Beckett.
Its brilliant main character, forensic anthropologist Dr. David Hunter, actually appears in the opening story, but only in the opening story, in which two naked corpses present the police with a frosty mystery in the Scottish Highlands. This is followed by what the blurb calls the "most exciting Christmas thrillers" by actually very well-known (and brilliant) authors such as Kate Pepper, Linwood Barclay, Veit Heinichen, Friedrich Ani, or Sebastian Fitzek. And at the latest, when you put the book down after Fitzek's story, you realize that the publisher didn't need to engage in the little deception with the variously sized names and the cover's nod to Simon Beckett's The Chemistry of Death.
However, a problem with the collection is presented precisely by Beckett's opening story, and this problem is rooted in the brevity of the stories. The development of suspense, which is essential for a thriller and culminates in (hopefully) an equally unpredictable yet logical ending – there simply isn't enough space for that in "Tödliche Gaben." And so, the unusual ending of Beckett's wintery story reveals, of all things, that it's not a Christmas mystery at all. But this only minimally detracts from the reading pleasure. — Thomas Köster
