The Winter of the Lions, By Jan Costin Wagner

The third installment in the Kimmo Joentaa detective series translated from the German by Anthea Bell) finds the Finnish cop preparing for yet another lonely Christmas.

Ever since the death of his wife, Kimmo has faced the winter bolstered only by vodka and cold milk. But then, in an unbelievable sequence of events, he finds himself pursued by a woman who says she's a prostitute.

Christmas Eve becomes yet stranger with the news that Kimmo's colleague, a forensic expert, has been found murdered. As ever in Wagner's fiction, the real villain of the piece is death itself.