Randy Rawls
Publisher: Quiet Storm Publishing
ISBN: 0-9758571-6-9
156 Pages
$14.95

    Being a PI isn’t the glamour job it’s cracked up to be, a fact which Arthur Conan (Ace) Edwards knows all too well. Instead of spending his days questioning sultry femmes fatales, Ace spends his nights following disloyal husbands through a string of seedy bars and hoping that he won’t wake up with his cats’ claws under his skin.

    Rarely does his luck hold , though, which seems to be par for the course for Ace. Often instrumental in putting him in the middle of chaos is his childhood friend, Jake Adams, who delights in calling him “Arty” and setting up a variety of strange and shady cases for his old pal. And it is in just this manner that Ace happens to meet the elf he knows only as “Stone.”

    From the very first page of Jingle’s Christmas, you realize that Randy Rawls is not your typical mystery writer. Then again, most typical mysteries don’t feature an elf, a truck full of toys and two table-cleaning cats within the first couple of chapters.

    Having not yet read the other books in the Ace Edwards series, I was pleased to find that Jingle was a stand-alone story that gave the supporting characters just enough introduction to make me want to get to know them better. As the story is just over 150 pages, Rawls doesn’t waste time dithering over details, but cuts to the heart of the matter right away. I found myself reading the end of Jingle’s Christmas and thinking that it seemed to be over much too soon, that I wanted to know what happened after Ace opened the door and that Randy Rawls needs to get to writing on his next installment!

    Despite the brevity of the novel, Rawls’ characters are solid and likeable, reminding the reader of his own nosy, elderly neighbor or certifiably insane cats and making us laugh at our own similar misfortunes in spite of ourselves. Ace’s story could easily be your own, which is what makes it so easy to lose yourself in the story that it’s sometimes hard to pull back into reality. This, above all else, is the trademark of an excellent storyteller.

    I won’t spoil the story for those who haven’t gotten a chance to read it, but suffice it to say that Jingle’s Christmas is a fun and inventive novel that goes without hesitation where other mystery novels fear to tread, not wanting to break with the “serious” nature of the genre.

    Hopefully, Rawls’ novels will get more wide-spread attention now that they’re being reprinted, because if Jingle is any indication of his previous novels, he deserves it a hundred-and-twenty percent! As for me, I’m headed to get the others in the Ace Edwards series as soon as possible and I heartily suggest you do the same.