Christmas Thriller

Detective Everleigh Beckett and P.I. Isaac Stern have partnered to solve two missing persons cases in time for the Christmas holidays, but when a man shows up in a hospital, claiming to be Adam O’Sullivan, Everleigh has to decide if he’s delusional or telling the truth.

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.

When Everleigh Beckett sets out to solve a Christmas mystery, she doesn’t give up, especially with P.I. Isaac Stern at her side.

Excitement is in the air as everyone in Mermaid Bay is preparing for the Christmas season. This year promises to be more dazzling than ever when the business council sponsors a competition for the town’s lucrative summer fireworks contract. The quaint little beach town is ready to be wowed with choreographed shows and drone action that light up the night sky.

"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.

Edna Davies is frantic. Concern for an invalid husband has put her behind and now, with less than a week before Christmas and with family gathering for the first time in years, she hasn't even put up a tree. As a winter storm descends on the town, the owner of a local cat shelter is found dead and Mary Osbourne disappears. Trying to juggle holiday plans with the search for her neighbor, Edna meets a killer and may miss Christmas.

The police hone in on Austin’s ex-girlfriend as their number one suspect, but Scarlett isn’t sure they’ve found the right culprit. Her feelings about the woman are complicated, and she is tempted to let the police handle this mystery. But pleas from Austin and her insatiable curiosity won’t let her sit idly by without poking around in search of some answers.

Christmas in New Orleans—a city brimming with cheery jazz, red and green bulbs lighting the streets, the spicy aroma of gumbo, and the cold chill of spirits asking Santa for the gift of redemption. After a string of challenging cases, paranormal investigator Kimberly Wantland is looking forward to spending the holidays quietly with her friends in the Big Easy. But ghosts don’t rest at the Cardinal Hotel.

As Mallory begins to plan a gala for an influential family, one of their employees is poisoned, and it's up to Mallory to solve the crime before time runs out.

Octogenarian Flo should be delighted with a third case to solve this holiday season, but this one draws her into a past she thought she'd left behind. The love of her life from fifty years ago, Gilbert Lane, begs her to help save his life. He lives in Eureka, Nevada, a small mining town which flourished in the 1850s. It's current claim to fame is the Eureka Opera House, lovingly restored and now home to Gil's theatrical productions. Is her old boyfriend really in trouble or is he simply being dramatic in hopes he can lure Flo back into his life?

It’s been a long school year down in sunny Somerset, Florida, and it’s only halfway over. Logan, a teacher, and his freshman son Ulysses are really looking forward to their long Christmas break together, especially after both Adairs nearly died solving the one percent murders earlier in the school year. They are both in need of a nice, relaxing family Christmas break. So they go back to their New England roots, up in Maine. It will be a classic Maine Christmas at Logan’s parents’ new Victorian bed and breakfast on a small island on the Kennebec River.

Libby Sarjeant is deep into rehearsals for the annual pantomime when a body is found in a doorway two weeks before Christmas - and Libby and her friend Fran are called into action once again, when their investigation leads them to a local brewery and the sale of many of its pubs. With the help of a team of local publicans, can Libby and Fran unravel the case before it's too late?

After more than a decade away, Mira James isn’t keen on returning to her Minnesota hometown for the holidays. Her childhood memories aren’t particularly jolly. Even less festive is the news of a serial killer on the loose. With only ten shopping days till Christmas, the Candy Cane Killer has been very busy slashing through the snow. Eager to earn her official PI stripes, Mira is anxious to track him down. But when the latest victim is a woman from her high school graduating class, the investigation hits a little too close to home.

With the festive season fast approaching, amateur sleuth Juno Browne helps organise a Christmas Fair to raise funds for Ashburton’s local animal sanctuary. The event is a success, but whilst Santa is handing out presents in the fairy-lit grotto, a murder is being committed in a dark corner of the garden. Juno discovers the body of Bob the Blacksmith, found clutching a horseshoe decorated with a sprig of elder. Suspicion falls on Bob’s longsuffering wife, Jackie, and on Don Drummond, with whom Bob violently quarrelled in the past

December in Savannah, Georgia, is a sight to behold. Twin sisters Tabby and Sage Winslow are busier than ever setting up for the big celebration. But that isn’t the only thing on the sisters’ minds. Both Sage and her fellow employee Mary Nicole are vying for the sought-after assistant-manager job at the plant nursery. But when Loren Lee, their boss, is found dead and Sage becomes the police’s favorite suspect, both Winslow girls know that they’ll need more than a flicker of magic and their sisterhood to solve the murder and clear Sage’s name.

As the holiday season lights up Seattle's famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece's beloved Spice Shop is brimming with cinnamon, nutmeg, and shoppers eager to stuff their stockings. Add to the mix a tasty staff competition—a peppermint bark-off—along with Victorian costumes for this year's Dickensian Christmas theme, and Pepper almost forgets to be nervous about meeting her fisherman boyfriend's brother for the first time. But when a young woman working in her friend Vinny's wine shop is brutally assaulted, costumed revelers and holiday cheer are the last things on Pepper's mind.

In 1968, a couple of KGB agents in Germany wanted to defect. Too bad for them that the CIA and the US Army wanted no part of this action. A group of US soldiers decided to facilitate these defections without any official coordination. What could possibly go wrong? More things than you can probably imagine.

Detective Chief Inspector John Shadow is reluctantly attending York Minster’s Advent Ceremony when the new Dean is taken ill after drinking wine. Was her allergic reaction a simple case of human error or could she have been poisoned? Shadow becomes suspicious when he learns someone else has died under similar circumstances. He begins to quietly investigate, but when the body of a young woman is recovered from the river, he knows he must act quickly. And this time, Shadow requires the help of someone from his past.

Security specialist Gideon Wright knows Mya Rochon’s cancer research is groundbreaking. But when an arsonist destroys his ex-wife’s lab and puts her at risk, he discovers it’s dangerous, too. With Gideon’s protection, Mya’s determined to finish her project—no matter the risk to her life…or Gideon's heart. But will their rekindled partnership face its most deadly adversary yet?

In addition to feeding the felines Aubrey and Vincent, Jeremy Goodman has a new responsibility: filling a recently vacated trustee role at a local charity that works tirelessly to house the homeless. Jeremy is initially enthusiastic—but soon begins to suspect that all is not as it seems at the nonprofit’s headquarters.