Silent Night by Anita Waller @BloodhoundBook

One snowy night. One brutal murder. One shattering secret.

Book blurb

On Christmas Eve, Reverend Steve Rainforth leads midnight mass in his quiet Yorkshire village. Among the congregation sits a nervous young woman, a stranger to most – yet before the night is over, she will be found dead in the churchyard, and Steve’s world will be shattered forever.

As Detective Inspector Adam France and his team race to uncover the truth, buried secrets begin to surface – secrets that reach into the heart of Steve’s past and threaten the fragile life he has built. With the New Year approaching, loyalties will be tested, lies will unravel, and a devastating revelation will change everything…

My thoughts

I really enjoyed the Kat and mouse series and when I saw this Christmassy book I simply couldn’t resist reading it.

This is a cosy kind of crime fiction although there are several murders it is not a gruesome or graphic story. I settled into it and was soon hooked.

The Rev Steve hears a cry as he is locking up the church after midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Thinking it was a fox, what else could it be? He is shocked to find the body of a young woman amongst the graves as he takes the path home from the church.

There is a bigger shock awaiting him when he goes to inform the family of the young woman. The mother is an old flame, Steve’s first real love. What she whispers to him as he and the Detective are leaving brings the death of the young woman onto a very personal level!

D I Adam France is not getting very far with the investigation and he feels that those who are being questioned are keeping information from him.

D I France doggedly keeps at the investigation, continuing to question those who seem to be keeping information from him especially the decedents mother. What is she hiding?

Why is Rev Steve so reticent about visiting the mother to offer solace and support? Why hasn’t he told his wife or, indeed, the Detective Inspector what the mother whispered to him?

There are more murders before D I France gets to the bottom of this one and solves the mystery. But will he get to the murderer before they can get away? Will Rev Steve be willing indeed able to give the Inspector a vital piece of information and allow justice to be done?

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend to those who like less vivid crime fiction or would like a slightly lighter, it is after all a story about murder so not a frivolous book, cosier murder mystery over the festive season.

Book: purchased

Information

Published: Bloodhound Books | 22 October 2025 | 231 pp | ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8337205557

Buy: Amazon | Hive | Bookshop.org (affiliate link) – all books stocked | Your local library | Your local bookshop

Silent Night

Silent night! Holy night! All is calm, all is bright Round yon virgin mother and child! Holy infant, so tender and mild, Sleep in heavenly peace! Sleep in heavenly peace!

Silent night! Holy night! Shepherds quake at the sight! Glories stream from heaven afar, Heavenly hosts sing Alleluia! Christ the Saviour is born! Christ the Saviour is born!

Silent night! Holy night! Son of God, love’s pure light Radiant beams from thy Holy face With the dawn of redeeming grace, Jesus, Lord, at thy birth! Jesus, Lord, at thy birth!

Below links to Silent Night in English and German

https://youtu.be/POcDlbYiF9c?si=fX9PFf8wRyTn-QGV

https://youtu.be/2sZLFbbWo8w?si=Kd_n9qHNlRb1oi18

Author

Anita Waller was born in Sheffield, South Yorkshire in 1946. She married Dave in 1967 and they have three adult children.

With many books to her name, she feels she has finally realised her dream. She writes mainly psychological thrillers, but was commissioned in 2018 to write a cosy mystery series, the Kat and Mouse trilogy. By November 2020 this will have grown to five books, plus a spin-off standalone novel called Epitaph, featuring Doris, one of the characters from the series. This series has now led on to a spin-off series, the Connection Trilogy, with books entitled Blood Red, Code Blue and Mortal Green. All these books, which will number twenty by the time Mortal Green is available, have been published by Bloodhound Books.

In 2021 Waller signed a five book deal with Boldwood Books, followed by a three book deal, and currently has eight published books with them: Flash Point, The Family at No.12, Fatal Secrets (the first in a new series set in Sheffield), The Couple Across the Street, Fatal Lies, (the second in the Forrester series) and The Girls Next Door. The final book in the Forrester series, Fatal Endings, has now been launched and this has been followed by a standalone, The Missing Ones.

Her next book will be available in August 2025, and is entitled The House of Lies. This will be followed by a Christmas novel, aiming for an October launch date.

She is now in her late-seventies, happily writing most days and would dearly love to plan a novel, but has accepted that isn’t the way of her mind. Every novel starts with a sentence and she waits to see where that sentence and her characters will take her. If writer’s block intrudes, be sure there will be a death.

In her life away from the computer in the corner of her kitchen, she is a Sheffield Wednesday supporter with blue blood in her veins!

Her genre is murder – necessary murder.

ALSO BY ANITA WALLER

Psychological thrillers

Kat and Mouse series

Supernatural

Winterscroft

The Connection Trilogy

Blood Red | Code Blue| Mortal Green

The Forrester Detective Agency Series

Fatal Secrets | Fatal Lies | Fatal Endings