Christmas Mystery Thriller

The Christmas season is supposed to be a time of joy and celebration. But for Private Investigator Melody Clue, the holidays can quickly go awry, as she discovers in this three-story collection.

Chloe Walsh’s skills as location manager have come up trumps again - Serenity Bay is now the setting for cosy crime drama The Montgomery Mysteries, starring amateur sleuth Dominic Montgomery and his crime-solving dog, Agatha. But Chloe is in a race against time. Filming has to finish before the village Midwinter Festival, but schedules are tight - and a mystery saboteur is intent on slowing things down even further. Not only is Chloe facing problems with the shoot, she also has some personal conundrums to solve.

In Book Two of the Cat in the Attic series, in addition to the time she spends at the animal shelter, Callie has a new sideline writing human interest stories for the regional newspaper. It is a job she loves and hopes to grow - until she is asked to reveal the man behind the mask when Secret Santa comes to town and begins committing random acts of kindness. Meanwhile, Cass has a new murder to solve, Gracie has gone crazy with the decorations, and Naomi's friend Hancock comes to town.

It's Millie's and Jeremiah's first Christmas in their new desert home, and it should be a fun one. But then six-year-old Caleb disappears while in their care. Searching for him on their dirt bikes, they come upon a lifeless body. They're in need of a Christmas miracle, but will they get one in time?

When her beloved dog passes away just before Christmas, Gloria isn't sure about her best friend's advice. Holiday hilarity ensues when a new cat shows up on her doorstep each day. Who's leaving the cats? And why? Will Gloria's Christmas go up a poof of pet fur, or will it prove to be the most purrfect holiday ever?

In this Zoe Donovan novella, Zoe is invited to Ireland to attend the wedding of one of her Irish cousins after contacting the man as part of her research into her Irish heritage. The wedding is being held at Dunphy Castle, the castle where Zoe first learned of her relationship to Lady Catherine, one of the ghosts she met during her last visit to the Emerald Isle.

Polly Parrett finds herself in the midst of another murder mystery. This time it involves two little girls, a wicked stepmother, and a missing father. Oh, and Christmas is almost here. It all begins with a mysterious gift box that’s left on Polly's doorstep. Along the way she encounters problems with her pet-sitting customers and her arch nemesis, Britney Harris, who has her eye on Polly's boyfriend Tyler.

About to purchase a bus ticket to live on the beaches of Florida, she meets Sam and April. Never having any real friends before, these two offer Angel comfort such as she’s never known before. Little does she suspect their dark path will turn her world upside down.

What do bulldog puppies and garden gnomes have to do with a dead Santa Claus? Once again intrepid pet-sitter, Polly Parrett, finds herself in the thick of a murder investigation. This time it comes too close to home when the killer strikes during the annual Christmas Open House for Welcome Home, the shelter Polly and her mom run for homeless military veterans and their pets. The murder could jeopardize everything they've worked for, so Polly sets out to catch the killer and put the jolly back in the holiday.

Meghan takes a walk down memory lane and remembers the fright that was before Christmas when she was an aspiring actress in Hollywood. She thought she had gotten the role of a lifetime until she discovered the role she got was for something totally different. Things go from bad to worse when she's identified as a prime suspect for the murder of a key person on set. Meghan knows there are several women who had plausible reasons to want to do something diabolical to the boss from hell. She's one of those women, but she knows she didn't do it. So if it wasn't her, who was it?

Why can't they just leave Christmas alone? Kris Kringle left behind his mercenary life to atone and accept the responsibility of delivering presents to the children each year. The children will smile on Christmas morning at all costs. Someone has set a trap for Kris Kringle - but the problem is, Kris is willing to go anywhere to get those gifts to the children. Including to his dark place. Be careful, world. You don’t want to piss off Saint Nick.

As the Christmas decorating season approaches, Thyme & Seasons proprietor China Bayles feels overwhelmed. While she tries to balance her new roles of wife and step-mom with the demands of her thriving herbal shop, her business partner and best friend, Ruby, mysteriously disappears. Soon China's cantankerous mistletoe supplier Carl turns up dead. With Ruby missing and friends suspected of murder, China must investigate before tragedy strikes again.

And high-ranking members have taken an interest in FBI Special Agent Megan Luchek. Money Makes It Deadlier: Agent Luchek steps into high heels and deep danger when she gets assigned to investigate a bank. Revenge Makes It Sweeter: Megan gets a late-night summons to the hospital to speak with a gunshot victim. Christmas Makes It Chaos: Agent Luchek goes to Philadelphia for an antiterrorism conference only to face off against real terrorists. Treachery Makes It Tense: Megan gets an unlikely ally in the desperate fight to save Dan’s family from a madman.

It’s Christmas, CJ Turley’s favorite holiday, only something hovers over the festivities. A cat’s collar disappears, and it seems as if Caper, CJ’s darling pup, might be the culprit. It’s easier to believe than suspecting the owners of the cat from stealing from themselves. Hilarity and mayhem follow CJ and her friends as they try to solve the theft. All CJ really wants is to have a nice holiday with a Christmas party no one will forget. Full of twists, turns, and laughs, this Christmas novella is sure to please cozy mystery fans.

t’s the first anniversary of the mysterious death of Edward Luddenham, found dead at his home on the Yorkshire moors one frosty Christmas Eve. Now nine people gather at his manor house for the reading of the Will. Each has their own motivations for coming: curiosity, duty, unrequited love, desperation, greed. They have been instructed to bring a “festive mystery story” to share.

December, 1959: The Korean War rages on. Protesting the bloody conflict, a Korean-American man by the name of William Yang suddenly blows himself up in the middle of a Los Angeles department store just before Christmas, which leads the U.S. government to reopen the internment camps used during World War II. President Joseph McCarthy's America has never been more on edge, paranoid, and above all, dangerous.

Christmastime in London. When three seemingly unconnected victims are murdered with matching sequential Roman numerals carved into their foreheads, Metropolitan Police Commander Austin Grant finds his answer in one of the last places he'd expect: the Holy Bible. Each of the deaths correspond to a transgression of one of the Ten Commandments, and Grant must find the killer before the remaining Commandments are commemorated with homicides.

A holiday novella. The Shoemakers and Ferraros plan to spend Christmas in Texas with Larry and Jane Ann's brother and then take a camping trip through the Southwest. But those plans are stopped cold when they hit a rogue ice storm in Missouri and they end up snowbound in a campground. And that's just the beginning.

When Victor Narraway, Thomas Pitt's close friend and former boss, and his new wife, Lady Vespasia, travel to Jerusalem for a Christmas holiday, Vespasia cannot shake the feeling that they are being watched. Then, an old man leaves a mysterious envelope for Narraway - and is murdered soon after. But it is only when the couple is ambushed the following morning that they realize they are in grave danger.

"It's the most wonderful time of the year," the old song tells us. But that doesn't mean the people celebrating it are always so nice. Criminals get the Christmas spirit, too! In this collection of hilarious short stories, you'll see what the thieves, killers, psychos and scumbags are up to come the holidays...and it's not caroling door to door. Well, not unless they're casing the neighborhood for a break-in, as a rag-tag gang does in the title story.