The Hunter
A George Cross Short Story

A DS George Cross Christmas Story

DS George Cross doesn't like surprises. He spends each Christmas the same way: at home eating Chinese takeout with his father, Raymond. But this year Raymond has invited George’s mother, and she intends to cook a turkey. Worse, when George asks her what she would like for a present, she tells him she’d much rather be surprised. How on earth is George supposed to know what to get her?

A murder case, when it comes, is something of a relief. On a frosty morning soon after, Cross is called to inspect a body found in the thick hedgerow bordering a farm. It appears the young man was trying to scramble through the tangled branches when he died. He was running away from something. Or someone.

Cross and his partner, DS Ottey, learn that the victim was a forager, but with the local farmers closing ranks, finding the killer won't be easy. Even so, Ottey is confident Cross will notice what everyone else has missed. In any investigation, George is patient, persistent, and impossible to put off. But solving the mystery of his mother’s present may take a different set of skills…