Evil waits in the dead of winter...

Christmas is just days away, and DCI Kett and the Extreme Crime Task Force are preparing to celebrate the festive season with some well-earned peace and quiet.

But all hopes of a restful holiday are crushed when a man dressed as Santa Claus is found dead in the chimney of an old cabin.

And he’s just the first.

The hunt for a monster begins, but standing in the way is a cutthroat family of thieves, a bloody vendetta and a sinister cult led by a man known only as Saint Nick.

In a town full of secrets, somebody knows the truth. But they’re willing to kill to keep it buried.

And in this bleakest of midwinters, nobody is guaranteed to wake up on Christmas morning…Alex Smith books, the DCI Robert Kett and DI Harrison Baird thrillers, have monsters in them too, although these monsters are very human, and all the more terrifying for it. In between, he has published fourteen novels for children and teenagers under his full name, Alexander Gordon Smith—including the number one bestselling series Escape From Furnace. He lives in Norwich with his wife and three young daughters.


Tim Bruce is seasoned narrator having narrated over 200 audiobooks. This includes both fiction and non-fiction and most notably Lynda La Plante’s Framed and Albert Roux’s My Life in Food. When he is not narrating he is acting and has been in many TV soaps and in the West End production of Blood Brothers.

© 2027 Alex Smith (P) 2027 DK Audio