When Cameron starts his investigation, everyone in the town of Sweet Haven talks of the murder victim Jennifer Dean as though she was an angel- seemingly flawless. It's not unlike Winter's childhood memories of Mia: idealized as near perfect. But, as we gradually learn, this doesn't tell the full story of either girl. Really, this truth applies to everyone; we are none of us exactly the way we are perceived to be by those around us. Everyone has thoughts, feelings, and sometimes deeds that we would prefer never saw the light of day, but are part of our characters whether known by others or not. Certainly this is true of Cameron Winter who has many dark corners in his life which he would prefer remain unexamined, even by his therapist. When Winter meets the accused man Travis Blake for the first time, he thinks that Blake looks like a harsh, angry man and wonders how Jennifer saw anything about him to love. It seems probable that this is also how Cameron sees himself: a damaged man who is unlikely to inspire love, whether in Mia or any of the subsequent women with whom he's had relationships. But of course, a harsh, forbidding exterior doesn't generally give the full picture of a person's character any more than an angelic one does. Whatever his failings, Jennifer did fall in love with Travis Blake, and Cameron is a better man than he considers himself to be, despite his personal demons.
In the case of Mia and her family, the evil came from inside, in the form of a shameful secret of hidden past misdeeds. It destroyed their family cohesion and set Mia on a self-destructive path, because their comfortable existence was built on a foundation of lies and ruinous deceit. As Cameron struggles to unwind the mystery of what happened with Jennifer Dean and Travis Blake, it becomes increasingly clear that, whatever their internal troubles, Jennifer came to Sweet Haven to escape something sinister and dangerous, and that danger eventually followed her to her new home and life. It then becomes more of a question of how Travis, damaged war vet and troubled fiance, responded to this outward threat.
I quite enjoyed reading When Christmas Comes; it kept me interested all the way through, trying to figure out just what had happened to Jennifer Dean. I also found the secondary story- that of Cameron's history with Mia- to be compelling. There's always a danger when, in a book or film, there's a flashback story being switched to periodically throughout, that it'll be less interesting than the main storyline. It then becomes tiresome and irritating when the narrative is interrupted to cut away to past events which don't particularly interest you. But in this case, it's easy to become invested in Cameron's ill-fated relationship with Mia, and speculate how these painful events in his youth helped form the man Winter has become.
Cameron Winter is a sympathetic protagonist: a flawed man, but one who is aware of his failings and desirous to do the right things, even if he doesn't always succeed. The book doesn't shy away from the fact that life is messy and people are complicated. For example, Mia's father was a family man- a loving father and a father-figure to Cameron. But his safe, comfortable life in America was bought at the expense of others, and the revelation of this secret destroys what he had sold his soul to achieve. In the fallout from this, Mia's life is ruined not so much by the knowledge itself, but by how she chooses to respond to it. As I stated previously, everyone eventually faces tragedy or evil of some sort in their lives- no one can control or prevent that. What we can control is how we react to it, for good or ill. As the book draws to a close and what actually occurred is revealed, we are faced with another messy moral dilemma. It becomes clear that Travis has committed a murder, though not the one he was accused of, nor for the suspected reasons. We are left to ponder a number of questions such as, is it ever justifiable to do a terrible thing for a good reason? Can guilt be mitigated by motive, or by the character of the victim? Who gets to make that decision? In the end, when there are no good options, I'd say the least worst one is to always protect the innocent from evil, no matter the cost.
When Christmas Comes is a quick read, but it contains an involving mystery, compelling characters, and interesting moral dilemmas. It's definitely worth picking up.