Listen here:
About A Winter Killing
I am an unembarrassed fan of Christmas (okay, maybe a little embarrassed). I can spend hours in a holiday market, will gleefully subject my family to holiday music the day after Halloween, and I’ll horrify my wife with garish new inflatable lawn ornaments every year.
Given that, it made sense that the holidays eventually found a way into my fiction, even if my fiction can be…a little dark? But it happened organically, as I was writing the thriller When She Left and I started creating the character of Lucky Wilson, one of the protagonists of that novel, a real estate agent who moonlights as an assassin. Lucky is pulled between the secrecy of his work and the longing for his family, and this is emphasized by his love of all things Christmas. There’s some dark humor there, of course, but there’s also a genuineness in Lucky that I found rather moving, and wanted to explore.
That novel was completed, but Lucky Wilson wasn’t. I had the urge to tell one more story about him, and given the novel’s February release, I found myself imagining a holiday-themed story. A story that explored how Lucky came to love Christmas, and one that also details the conflicting love for his family and the necessity of his work. “A Winter Killing” is that story.
Those that have attended my Noirs at the Bar or other readings know how much I love working with local jazz sensation Sara Jones, who I’ve been a fan of for years and years and has a warmth in her voice that can melt snow. In addition to her music, Sara has done voiceover work and trained with a vocal coach, and I asked if she’d consider doing both an audio version of “A Winter Killing,” and sing a song to accompany the story. She happily agreed, and we decided to produce the song as an old-timey version (which matches how its portrayed in the story). Sara sang all the parts of the chorus, and the folks at Blue House Productions mixed and mastered it.
You can listen to “A Winter Killing” above or below this text, and you also have the option to download the story, or you can download the song separately (perfect for your holiday music playlist). I hope you enjoy it!
Links
Listen to “A Winter Killing”
Listen to Sara Jones singing “Angels We Have Heard on High”
Learn more about Lucky Wilson and When She Left
