Christmas Mystery Thriller

While trapped by a snowstorm at a conference, a visiting ornithologist is murdered. Now, nobody may make it home in time for Christmas...unless Meg comes to the rescue.

It’s just before Christmas, 1953. Grasby and Juggers are investigating a puzzling murder in the remote village of Uthley’s Bay. A fisherman has been found dead on the beach, with a stocking wound tight round his throat. Hundreds of pairs of stockings, in neat cellophane bags, soon wash up on the shore. A blizzard cuts off Grasby and Juggers from help, and the local innkeeper is murdered. Any remaining Christmas cheer goes up in smoke as the villagers refuse to talk, leaving the two detectives chasing false leads in the snow.

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....

DCI Michael Yorke and Emma Gardner are still plagued by guilt over their failure to catch the murderous psychiatrist known as the Conduit, and the loss of their former colleague to insanity. On Christmas Day, following a brutal massacre in Leeds, Yorke and Gardner find themselves once again chasing the ruthless puppeteer, believing that they have the initiative.

As the year comes to a close, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson must set out through snow laden London to investigate the theft of a priceless clock and the receipt of seven macabre Christmas cards. Will they solve the murderous mystery before they too receive the unwanted 'compliments of the season'? Written by esteemed writer, Anthony Horowitz, and originally published in the Daily Mail, this short story is a festive treat for all fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.

This wasn't the secret she expected from her Secret Santa! Security expert for a British bank by day, horse trainer at night, Izzy Paterson is a multi-tasking, dressage-riding computer whiz with an addiction to strong coffee and a penchant for CSI on Netflix. So when the Secret Santa at her office Christmas party hands her a perplexing riddle, she just can't ignore the mystery. Penned by a modern-day Robin Hood, the anonymous rhyme hints at financial misconduct that could put the future of everyone at her work in danger.

Madison Reynolds can't wait for Christmas this year. Rebuilding her life as a single mom hasn't been easy, but after a challenging 12 months, she's excited about the holidays. She and her twins have settled quite nicely here in The Sisters, renovations on the house are complete, her business is slowly growing, and, best of all, Chief of Police Brash deCordova is in her life.

Twas the night (okay, more like the week) before Christmas, and all through Pine Cove, California, people are busy buying, wrapping, packing, and generally getting into the holiday spirit.

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.

Harley Granger has a gift for seeing things that others miss. He wasn't much of a novelist, but his work as a true crime author and podcaster has earned him fame and wealth—and some serious criticism for his various unethical practices. Still, visiting Little Valley to be closer to his dying father has caused him to look into a case that many people think is closed—and some want reopened.

From the collection Mary Russell's War, "Mary's Christmas" delivers the author's signature blend of narrative mastery and historical detail while shining light on previously unexplored corners of the Russell-Holmes universe. Laurie R. King blends her long-running brand of crime fiction with historical treats and narrative sleight of hand.

New York Times bestselling author Peter Swanson pens a spectacularly spine-chilling novella in which an American art student in London is invited to join a classmate for the holidays at Starvewood Hall, her family’s Cotswold manor house. But behind the holly and pine boughs, secrets are about to unravel, revealing this seemingly charming English village’s grim history.

As the owner of Mrs. Claus's Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That's why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoe-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry's float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there's a Scrooge in Christmas Town. Merry isn't ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph's Christmas spirit. But then she stumbles upon the reporter's body on a late night dog walk....

Regency widow Lily Adler is looking forward to a quiet Christmastide away from the schemes and secrets she witnessed daily in London. Not only will she be visiting the family of her late husband; she will be reunited with Captain Jack Hartley, her friend and confidante, finally returned after a long voyage at sea. But secrets aren’t only found in London. Jack’s younger sister, Amelia, is the center of neighborhood scandal and gossip. She refuses to tell anyone what really happened, even when an unexpected snowstorm strands the neighborhood families together after a Christmas ball.

Vanessa March's husband, Lewis, is meant to be on a business trip in Stockholm - so why does he briefly appear in newsreel footage of a fire at a circus in Vienna, with his arm around another woman? Vanessa flies to Austria to find her husband, inadvertently becoming involved in a mystery that spans three countries...and the famous dancing stallions of the Spanish Riding School. The moonlight flooded the meadow, blanching all colours to its own ghostly silver. The pines were very black.

Thomas Pitt's sister-in-law, Emily Radley, is suddenly called from London to be with her dying aunt. Leaving her husband and two children behind, she makes the long journey to her aunt's home in Connemara, an all-but-forgotten town on the coast of Western Ireland. Emily soon discovers that a tragic legacy is haunting the once close-knit community. Violent storms ravage the coast and keep alive painful memories of an unsolved murder-and unsettling fears that a culprit may still be among them.

It's the most wonderful time of the year in Christmas River, and pie baker extraordinaire Cinnamon Peters has everything to look forward to this holiday season. She's celebrating her one-year wedding anniversary with Sheriff Daniel Brightman, her best friend's getting hitched, and she's making a triumphant return to the annual Gingerbread Junction Competition. Things are merry and bright everywhere Cinnamon looks.

It’s three days before Christmas, and detective-turned-chef Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is drafted in to cater a charity event run by a notorious millionaire at a 13th-century abbey on Bodmin Moor. Things get more complicated when a snowstorm descends, stranding them all, and the next morning they find one of the guests has been gruesomely murdered in their bed…

Luckily, Mina Wilde loves him anyway, as well as her two other literary boyfriends—the 'Napolean of Crime,' James Moriarty, and Poe's contemplative raven, Quoth. It's tough buying the perfect Christmas gifts for three lovers, but Mina's determined to make this year the best Christmas Nevermore Bookshop has ever seen. That is until the charity Christmas tree and all the presents donated by the village go missing. Heathcliff's grinching makes him the obvious culprit, but Mina knows Heathcliff isn't mean enough to steal gifts for the animal shelter . . . or is he?

It’s Christmas in Penstowan, and local amateur dramatics group the Penstowan Players are putting on their annual pantomime. This year it’s ‘Aladdin’, and half the town have been drafted in to help, including Shirley Parker, who only has a small part in the chorus but will no doubt upstage everybody, and Tony Penhaligon, who’s treading the boards as the baddie, Abanazar. Ex-Metropolitan police officer turned caterer Jodie Parker has managed to get away with not appearing, but only if she agrees to cater the opening night party.