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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas . . .

For most people, that means a time of celebration, relaxation and inebriation, but not for the staff of The Stranger Times. While a book club meeting ending in a triple murder isn’t unprecedented, it is at least noteworthy. It quickly emerges that this is no ordinary book-club-triple-murder either, as it features a librarian possessed by a chaotic entity who has broken through from another dimension and is hellbent on vengeance. He’s made a list, but he’s not checking it twice as the whole of humanity is on it. Who would want to summon such a thing? And how is anyone going to be able to send it back?

As if that wasn’t enough to be dealing with, a shocking revelation about a member of The Stranger Times team’s past brings family together, but not in a way that’s ever going to make it into a Hallmark movie.

Featuring demonically possessed Santas, blood-thirsty books and the ghost of a legendary nightclub, it’s beginning to look a lot like a Christmas apocalypse . . .

Ring the Bells is the fifth book in the award-winning, critically acclaimed and laugh-out-loud funny The Stranger Times series.


'McDonnell's world is transgressively hilarious, grimly banal and beguilingly warm. Of course there's a story that the intrepid journalists of The Stranger Times have to tease out: grave-robbing, cryogenics, a very angry witch, and a washed-up indie legend looking for a lost album, but the real joy lies in the pitfalls and pratfalls of getting there.' DAILY MAIL

'An absolute riot of a read.' DAILY EXPRESS

'Laugh-out-loud funny and full of colourful characters.' DAILY MIRROR

© C. K. McDonnell 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025