BOOKS AND DACHSHUNDS: HOLIDAY READING DECEMBER 2025

With Christmas and New Year on the very near horizon, 2025 is virtually wrapped up, and my reading over the holiday period will be largely focused on the new releases for 2026 that I have received, an old classic and a couple of books I meant to get to earlier. In selecting my Christmas reads, I had some help from my Long Dog assistants.

I am starting my Christmas reading with a treat, a book I have been meaning to read (re-read) for some time.

Paul Winterton wrote over forty thrillers and crime novels, mainly under the pseudonym of Andrew Garve, from the early 1950s through to the late 1970s. I recently read one of his crime novels, Frame-Up (1964), which renewed my interest in him. A friend lent me his copy of The Ascent Of D.13 (Collins Crime Club, 1969), and I thought it would be a fun way to start my holiday reading.

The Ascent Of D.13 is a classic 1960s spy thriller about a British agent trying to retrieve a secret weapon which was onboard a hijacked plane that has crashed on a formidable mountain named D-13 near the Turkish-Soviet border. Featuring a race against time, the environment and competing forces, the plot is probably best summed up by the original jacket flap:

It is a great set-up and promises plenty of mountain climbing detail and 1960s spy thrills in under 200 pages!

A link to my review of Frame-Up: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/forgotten-crime-frame-up-by-andrew-garve-1964/

Another treat is Alex Finlay’s Parent’s Weekend (Minotaur, May 2025). Finlay is one of my favourite authors, but the availability of his books in Australia is a bit hit and miss. Parent’s Weekend was published in the United States in May 2025, but has not been released locally yet and is not available on Audible. So I ended ordering a copy from the United States.

The story seems to follow the usual Finlay pattern of dual timelines and a strong focus on teenagers and young adults. It is also likely to contain more than its share of surprises and twists.

The plot sounds intriguing:

“In the glow of their children’s exciting first year of college at a small private school in Northern California, five families plan on a night of dinner and cocktails for the opening festivities of Parents Weekend. As the parents stay out way past their bedtimes, their kids—five residents of Campisi Hall—never show up at dinner.

At first, everyone thinks that they’re just being college students, irresponsibly forgetting about the gathering or skipping out to go to a party. But as the hours click by and another night falls with not so much as a text from the students, panic ensues. Soon, the campus police call in reinforcements. Search parties are formed. Reporters swarm the small enclave. Rumors swirl and questions arise.

Libby, Blane, Mark, Felix, and Stella—The Five, as the podcasters, bloggers, and TikTok sleuths call them—come from five very different families. What led them out on that fateful night? Could it be the sins of their mothers and fathers come to cause them peril or a threat to the friend group from within?”

The story also features the return of FBI Special Agent Sarah Keller from Every Last Fear and The Night Shift, which is probably my favourite of Finlay’s books. If you have not read Finlay yet, track his books down. They are great reads and ideal company over the holiday period.

Fiona Hardy’s Unbury The Dead was one of the stand-out Australian crime novels of 2025 for me. Fresh and witty, it featured a great central character pairing in the form of dodgy investigators and marginal criminals Alice and Teddy.

Now Alice and Teddy are back in another tale of odd goings-on and murder, Old Games (Affirm, 24 February 2026).

“Morally flexible best mates and private investigators Alice and Teddy pride themselves on fixing every kind of mess imaginable, no questions asked. So, when they’re tasked with locating the recently-stolen ashes of long-dead celebrity tennis player Ashley “Perry” Perrineau, it should be a routine job.

But it quickly becomes clear that everyone who knew Perry is keeping secrets: his accountant despises Perry’s widower; the sculptor of his statue is hiding something in her studio; his ex-doubles partner is a compulsive liar; and his mother is obsessed with preserving his legacy and her image at all costs.

Alice and Teddy will need to travel up and down Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula – all while avoiding more than one person on their tail – to uncover the truth and keep the body count from rising. But will they and the people they love survive what they find?”

I have high expectations for Old Games and I am really looking forward to reading this over the holiday period.

Here is what I thought about Unbury Dead in my Best Of 2025 post: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/the-years-best-my-favourite-crime-novels-and-thrillers-of-2025/

Sporting an amusing cover and an intriguing title, M. K. Oliver’s A Sociopath’s Guide To A Successful Marriage, (Hemlock Press, 30 December 2025), is the latest in a steady stream of criminal ‘Guide’ books: A Good Girl’s To Murder (Holly Jackson), A Neighbour’s Guide To Murder (Louise Candlish), A Serial Killer’s Guide To Marriage (Asa Mackay), etc.

The publisher has provided the following plot summary:

“There’s a dead body in my living room.

I’ve not called the police because it was I who stabbed him. Seven times in all. The truth is, it’s surprisingly difficult to dispatch someone with a vegetable knife.

In case you’re wondering, the dead man is not my husband. I do resent our pitiful sex life and his woeful lack of ambition, but I wouldn’t murder him for it. Not yet, anyway.

Right now, I have far more pressing concerns: scheming to get my daughter into the perfect school; buying my dream home in Hampstead; and disposing of a corpse.

A woman’s work is never done. I’ve created the perfect life – and I’ll kill to keep it.“

Sounds good fun!

Ace Atkins’ Don’t Let The Devil Ride from 2024 was a terrific novel full of interesting, quirky characters and a plot that ricocheted around in unexpected directions until the final surprising outcome.

I borrowed his latest, Everybody Wants To Rule The World (Corsair, 2 December 2025), from my fellow blogger at https://unseenlibrary.com/, and it certainly sounds like another highly original tale:

“It’s 1985, what will soon become known at “The Year of the Spy,” and fourteen-year-old Peter Bennett is convinced his mom’s new boyfriend is a Russian agent.

“Gary” isn’t in the phone book, has an unidentifiable European accent, and keeps a gun in the glove box of his convertible Porsche. Peter thinks Gary only wants to get close to his mom because she works at Scientific Atlanta, a lab with big government contracts. But who is going to believe him? He’s just a kid into BMX and MTV.

But after another woman who works at the lab is killed, Peter recruits an unlikely pair of allies-a has-been pulp writer and muckraker named Dennis Hotchner and his drag performer buddy and heavy, Jackie Demure. Both soon become the target of an unhinged Russian hitman (is it Gary? Maybe!) with a serious Phil Collins obsession.

Meanwhile, Sylvia Weaver, a young, Black FBI agent, investigates Scientific Atlanta in the wake of the employee’s murder and discovers a nest of Russian spies in the Southern “city too busy to hate.” Little does she know her investigation is being thwarted by a seriously compromised colleague in Washington, D.C., who is in league with a lovesick, hypochondriac KGB defector who is playing both sides of the Cold War to his benefit.

As Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev prepare for a historic nuclear summit in Geneva, what happens in Atlanta might change the course of the Cold War, the 20th Century, and Peter Bennett’s freshman year of high school.”

Again this sounds like an enjoyable piece of holiday reading by an author who deserves to be better known in Australia.

Finally, for something a bit different, I want to delve into Eric H. Cline’s After 1177 B. C. (Princeton University Press, 2024).

Cline’s 1177 B.C. was a fascinating exploration of what happened after the Bronze Age collapsed and why some civilisations endured, why some gave way to new ones, and why some disappeared forever. After 1177 B.C. starts with the chaos of 1177 B.C. and tells how the collapse of powerful Late Bronze Age civilizations created new circumstances to which people and societies had to adapt. Those that failed to adjust disappeared from the world stage, while others transformed themselves, resulting in a new world order that included Phoenicians, Philistines, Israelites, Neo-Hittites, Neo-Assyrians, and Neo-Babylonians. Taking the story up to the resurgence of Greece marked by the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C., After 1177 B.C covers a fascinating period of world history.

Cline is a very insightful and easily readable historian, and I am keen to read this follow-up to 1177 B.C., especially as we are planning on visiting some of the areas covered by the book in late 2026.

So plenty of interesting reading to keep me busy over the holiday period. I will be posting full reviews of most of the above books in the New Year, so please look out for them.

Meanwhile, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from me and the Long Dogs!

More dog photos here: https://murdermayhemandlongdogs.com/the-long-dogs-2/