Rosie Levine, Private Investigator, is having a hard time. She hates Christmas in all its forms, and has just had a row with her partner, who brought a seasonal tree into their office. So when Candy, a waif-like groupie, comes to her, asking her to investigate who wants to kill Jorandel, lead singer of the famous elf-rock band Cold Iron, she decides to take the case, somewhat against her better judgement. She goes in undercover as Candy's cousin, and is soon deep in a groupie's lifestyle of sex 'n' drugs 'n' elf-rock 'n' roll, but not making much headway on the case, until she begins to suspect one person might have the strangest motive of all.
I like the way the presence of elves in this society isn't explained at all, just taken for granted. But this isn't really a detective story -- it's more of a drug addiction and abuse story. Although the murderer is eventually exposed, more by luck than judgement, this is more a tale of Rosie finally discovering her problem with Christmas, and moving past it. And I had a minor problem throughout: an irritating tendency to parse the word "elfrock" as "el-frock", rather than "elf-rock". Oh well.
