Christmas Thriller

Sixteen delightful holiday short stories by some of your favorite Soho crime authors! This captivating collection of short mysteries and crime capers - which features New York Times best-selling authors, Crime Writers Association Gold and Diamond Dagger winners, and Edgar Award nominees - contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season.

As the holidays approach, Detective Lindsay Boxer and her friends in the Women's Murder Club have much to celebrate. Crime is down. The medical examiner's office is quiet. Even the courts are showing some Christmas spirit. And the news cycle is so slow that journalist Cindy Thomas is on assignment to tell a story about the true meaning of the season for San Francisco. Then, a fearsome criminal known only as "Loman" seizes control of the headlines. He is planning a deadly surprise for Christmas morning.

The cast of Donna Andrews’ New York Times best-selling Meg Langslow mystery series is back for an unforgettable holiday story in The Twelve Jays of Christmas.

It's Christmas time in Caerphilly, and the town is preparing for their live nativity. During rehearsals, Meg discovers a real baby in the manger, with a note attached that says the mother is leaving the baby girl there so that her father can take care of her, and the wording of the note implicates Meg's brother, Rob, as the father. Rob protests that he can't possibly be the father, but the town's suspicion creates a rift between him and his new girlfriend. Rob asks Meg to investigate on his behalf‚ to clear his name and to find the real parents of the baby.

Hoping for a relaxing break, Lulu sets off with Conrad on her canal boat The Lark to the picturesque city of Bath to visit friends. But Christmas cheer soon gives way to festive fear when the pair learn of a ruthless kidnapping plot that is plaguing parents in the area. As the kidnappers fuel panic with further demands, the pair must unravel clues faster than Conrad can charm with his witty banter if they are to stand any chance of bringing the criminals to justice in time to save the holidays . . .

No place is more perfect for the winter holidays than the charming mountain town of Estes Park. As the Cozy Corgi Bookshop and Bakery glistens with lights and garlands, Winifred Page allows the seasonal merriment to brush away all worry and fear. Watson, her grumpy corgi, is about as far from stressed as possible-after all, with the holiday baking, delectable crumbs are everywhere.

The Christmas trees in Knightsbridge sparkle with festive joy, and there’s nothing more fun than Christmas cocktail parties to ring in the new year of 1922. Camille Divine, known as Lady Camille Divine, has decorated her little house in Birdcage Mews with glistening decorations and a beautiful Christmas tree, but she has more on her mind than the festive season.

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.

Meet Marcia Banks...I’m a normal person. Well, I do have an unusual first name, pronounced Mar-see-a, not Marsha. And an abnormal vocation - I train service dogs for veterans with PTSD. But otherwise I’m normal...Except I tend to get sucked into other people’s messes, which has led to my unusual avocation - amateur sleuth. Romp along with me and my four-legged best friend, Buddy through our first three big adventures, plus a bittersweet Christmas tale!

Sarah Booth and Tinkie are shopping with little Maylin when they see Sandra and Janet outside a bookstore, fur flying, and when Sandra vanishes from her own gala later that night, suspicion turns to Janet. Janet accuses Sandra of attempting to manipulate the media by a fake disappearance, but is it a stunt, or is something more sinister at play? Sarah Booth and Tinkie will have to dive deep into the history of Bay St. Louis, and even Al Capone himself, to get to the bottom of this case.

When Edie O’Sullivan wins a three-day Christmas break in a hotel on a remote Scottish island, she’s looking forward to a picture-perfect Christmas full of winter walks, roaring fires, good books and even better whisky. But when a guest dies in mysterious circumstances, Edie realises that they have a killer amongst them. As more guests begin to die, it is up to Edie to solve the strange riddles found in the victims’ Christmas crackers if she is to stop the murderer’s killing spree. But as she gets closer to the truth, she puts herself in the way of a devious and clever killer.

This Yuletide, Kelly Flynn and friends are helping the town's librarian, Juliet, teach children how to knit. Juliet has fallen in love-but just as she finds happiness, death finds her, facedown in her Christmas cape. Suspicion falls on a newcomer, a widow with a puzzling past, who-some believe-was sweet on Juliet's boyfriend. But Kelly and her knitting crew aren't convinced. It's up to them to find a killer-before someone else gets fleeced.

The festive month is kicking off in style, and Pearl is rushed off her feet with her restaurant, The Whitstable Pearl. She’s also busy planning her own family Christmas and providing mulled wine for a charity church fundraiser when Christmas cards begin arriving all over town - filled with spiteful messages from an anonymous writer. Pearl’s curiosity is piqued, but having pledged not to take on a case at her detective agency before Christmas, she reluctantly agrees that Canterbury’s DCI Mike McGuire should take over, poisoned pen cards are after all a matter for the police.

When four trail hunters go missing in the fells of Cumbria on Christmas Eve, the race is on to find them before nightfall – when the temperature plummets. After hours of searching, the first body is found… Not frozen in the snow, but brutally murdered and bearing a warning: the real hunt has begun. As a snowstorm descends, three lives hang in the balance. But can the killer be caught before the trail goes cold?

The year is 1904. Twenty-three-year-old Jemima Pitt, the daughter of Thomas Pitt, head of Britain's Special Branch, is crossing the Atlantic. She is traveling with an acquaintance, Delphinia Cardew, who is to marry the aristocratic Brent Albright in a high-society New York wedding - a grand affair that will join together two fabulously wealthy families, titans of the international financial world. But Jemima senses a mysterious shadow darkening the occasion.

From the creator of Dalziel and Pascoe comes a fantastic collection of crime stories complete with a foreword by Mick Herron.

Melissa North had assumed that after eight years of not setting eyes on each other, her youthful attraction to - or an infatuation with - Julian Delamere, once Viscount Dagenham and now earl of Carsely, would have faded to nothing and gasped its last. Unfortunately, during the intervening years, she has failed to find any suitable suitor who measures up to her mark, and she is resigned to ending her days an old maid. Then she sees Julian across a crowded ballroom, and he sees her, and the intensity of their connection shocks her.

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier, Drayton Conneley, are catering a Victorian Christmas party at a swanky mansion in downtown Charleston. Drucilla Heyward, the hostess, is one of the wealthiest women in town. As the champagne flows and the tea steeps, Drucilla is so pleased with the reception by her partygoers that she reveals her secret plan to Theodosia. However, before she can make the announcement, Theodosia finds her crumpled unconscious in the hallway.

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....

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.