A Case of Christmas, by Josh Lanyon

[Ulysses]

A Case of Christmas
By Josh Lanyon
Four stars

I’ve never been to Catalina Island, off the coast of Los Angeles’s multifarious sprawl. But, having read Ms. Lanyon’s latest novella, I yearn to visit.

FBI agent Shane Donovan uses his little Clarissa Avenue beach cottage on Catalina as a retreat when things get to be too much. Over family protests, he returns to the cottage a few days before a very rainy Christmas, just hours since being released from the hospital after a near-death experience at the wrong end of an antique sword. Lo and behold, the guy who’s just bought the cottage across the street is the same one who, it seems, played him two years earlier when he was being secretly investigated by unhappy clients of the FBI.

The same guy he thought he was falling in love with. Ouch.

This little Christmas novella is Ms. Lanyon at her sweetest and least pointed. It is not a big deal, but it includes all of her talents as a writer, telegraphing personalities and places with literary economy and emotional punch. It is wonderful to watch these two men stumble toward each other, as the author strips away macho pretense and shows us the wounded hearts beneath the professional veneer.