Christmas Mystery Thriller

From New York Times best-selling author, Lynn Cahoon, comes a new Cat Latimer mystery. Santa's on his way, but the house Cat shares with her best friend and a monthly writing retreat isn't even decorated yet. Christmas is coming early to Cat Latimer's Writers Retreat. Cat and the gang aren't feeling the Christmas spirit. First up on her to do list, the last retreat of the year. A group of nonfiction authors dying to get into the Covington library. When one writer is found dead before the first retreat session, Cat must find the killer before he puts her on his naughty list.

England, 1927. When Lord Edgington hears of a failed attack on an eccentric viscount, it’s the perfect excuse to get out of seeing horrible relatives over Christmas. With his loyal grandson and their golden retriever along for the ride, he sets off to investigate, but on arriving at the snowbound manor house on the English coast, they find that the wrong man has been killed. It is not the rich tyrant who lies dead on the floor of the grand salon, but one of his many bickering heirs.

Lucy normally loves planning for the holidays, but this year, Tinker's Cove has fallen on hard times. With so many residents struggling, Christmas festivities are a luxury some can't afford. But the story's not so bleak at Downeast Mortgage, whose tightfisted owners, Jake Marlowe and Ben Scribner, are raking in profits from everyone's misfortune. Half the town is in their debt, so when the miserly Marlowe is murdered, the mourners are few and the suspects are many. Scribner believes Marlowe's ghost has come to warn him of his own demise, and when he starts receiving death threats, Lucy wonders if there's more to the omen....

It's the beginning of December in Rudolph, New York, America's Christmas Town, and business is brisk at Mrs. Claus's Treasures, a gift and decor shop owned by Merry Wilkinson. The local amateur dramatic society is intensely preparing a special musical production of A Christmas Carol. But it's not a happy set, as rivalries between cast and crew threaten the production.

Jill Gardner has volunteered her Coffee, Books, and More to host a Christmas adopt-a-pet party. Among the potential forever friends is a male terrier named Baby, whose owner died of a heart attack. With few clues to go on, even finding the name of Baby's human is a daunting task. But there's no challenge too big for Jill this holiday season. Playing Santa's Little Helper, Jill is determined to find out what happened - and to fulfill a long-time coming Christmas wish.

Le 1er décembre, Edie O'Sullivan, octogénaire acariâtre et solitaire, trouve sur le pas de sa porte un mystérieux colis. En le déballant, elle découvre une boîte de puzzle qu'elle s'empresse d'assembler. Des carreaux noirs et blancs éclaboussés de sang, un cadavre... ce n'est autre qu'une scène de crime ! Un message menaçant accompagne le colis : quatre personnes mourront à minuit, la veille de Noël, si Edie ne parvient pas à rassembler tous les indices pour arrêter l'assassin.

Lily Armitage never intended to return to Endgame House—the grand family home where her mother died twenty-one Christmases ago—until she receives a letter from her aunt, asking her to return to take part in an annual tradition: the Christmas Game. The challenge? Solve twelve clues to find twelve keys. The prize? The deeds to the manor house. Lily has no desire to win the house. But her aunt makes one more promise: The clues will also reveal who really killed Lily's mother all those years ago.

Maggie Crozat is back home in bayou country during the most magical time of the year. In Pelican, Louisiana, Christmastime is a season of giant bonfires on the levee, zydeco carols, and pots of gumbo. Except, this year, the Grinch has come to stay at the family-run Crozat Plantation B&B. When he floods travel websites with vicious reviews, Maggie thinks she's identified him as rival businessman Donald Baxter. That is, until he's found stabbed to death at Maggie's workplace. And Maggie and her loved ones become top suspects.

It's Christmas and the well-born guests who have gathered at Applecross for a delicious weekend of relaxation are warmed by roaring fires, mistletoe, and gorgeously wrapped gifts. It's scarcely the setting for misfortune, and no one - not even that clever young aristocrat and budding sleuth Vespasia Cumming-Gould - anticipates the tragedy that is to darken this light-hearted holiday house party. But soon one young woman lies dead, a suicide, and Vespasia must uncover the heartbreaking truth behind the tragedy.

With the spirit of the holidays wafting through the Beacon Bakeshop, Lindsey thinks she has the recipe for the sweetest Christmas ever - winning the town-wide cookie bake-off. Low on staff and bombarded by visits from family, Lindsey can barely meet demands at work, let alone summon the confidence to face fierce competition.... Self-appointed Christmas know-it-all Felicity Stewart is determined to take the top spot in the bake-off, and she's not afraid to dump a little coal in everyone's stocking to do it.

It's Christmastime in the tiny French village of St. Denis, and Police Chief Bruno Courrèges is busy playing Père Noël for the children. But when money raised for charity goes missing, Bruno trades in his bag of toys for his badge and sets out to find the thief.

Rose Gardner and Neely Kate Colson are thrilled with Mason's early present to Rose - a trip for the two of them to New Orleans for shopping, great food, and awesome seats to Wicked. Neely Kate plans to use the opportunity to visit a psychic and find out once and for all what her paranormal ability is. But when the psychic is murdered, and Neely Kate and Rose were the last people to see her alive, they find themselves the main suspects in a Christmas killing.

Although Father Tom Christmas serves his little church in enchanting Thornford Regis with a glad and faithful heart, he never expects to find himself skydiving to raise money for it. Nor, safely back on the ground, to see two of the other divers leap from the plane, then tangle in a midair punch-up and begin falling to the earth.

Pathologist Toni Day and her husband, Hal, are mystified when she starts receiving grisly Christmas cards depicting murders, each accompanied by a twisted verse from The Twelve Days of Christmas, and she and her partners are suddenly inundated with autopsies on the corresponding bodies. The victims are members of a jury that convicted Toni’s old boyfriend Robbie of kidnapping and sent him to prison.

In The Case of the Ghost of Christmas Morning, Wodehousian clubman, flaneur, idler, and sleuth Anty Boisjoly pits his sardonic wits against another pair of impossible murders. This time, Anty Boisjoly’s Aunty Boisjoly is the only possible suspect when a murder victim stands his old friends a farewell drink at the local, hours after being murdered.

If you've got a problem, Charlie Kingsley probably has a tea that’ll help make it right. Except when it comes to love. She does not do love potions. Not even for Courtney, her pregnant new client who showed up three weeks before Christmas seeking a love potion because her husband was cheating on her.

It’s Christmas Eve and Stella Hansen is broke. She is so broke that despite working two jobs, she can’t even afford a present for her husband on their first Christmas as man and wife. But then a mysterious storekeeper at a pawn shop offers Stella an intriguing trade. Stella wants more than anything to buy her husband the Christmas gift of his dreams. But will it come at a terrible price?

Join Posie Parker, London’s premier female Private Detective, and Chief Inspector Lovelace of New Scotland Yard as they spend Christmas Eve at Rebburn Abbey, home of the Earl and Countess of Cardigeon. Each house guest is invited to share a personal mystery, but what unfolds turns out to be less a cozy cornucopia of fire-side Christmas cheer than a series of curiously interlinked and unsettling mysteries.

The holidays have arrived, and Hannah and her good pal, Lisa, have agreed to provide all the goodies for the town's annual production of A Christmas Carol. But before anyone can say "bah, humbug!" a Santa-size sackful of trouble ensues. Like the fact that Lisa's husband will be playing Mr. Claus to his ex-girlfriend Phyllis Bates' Mrs. Claus. Or that before the curtains even go up, Phyllis is found dead in the snow - wearing a costume that the real Mrs. Claus would put on the naughty list.

Nancy Drew’s dad surprises her with a trip to a beautiful New England ski resort for Christmas break. But no vacation can go smoothly when Nancy is involved. On her very first run down the slopes, Nancy hits a bad patch of ice and takes a serious tumble. A doctor sends her back to the hotel in a cast and mandates 12 days of bed rest. That means no long car trips back to River Heights and 12 days of sitting around. Luckily, there’s still the five-star dining and beautiful views. Just hours into her convalescence, Nancy witnesses something very suspicious.