Christmas Thriller

Lonely Charles Latterly arrives at his small hotel hoping that the island's blue skies and gentle breezes will brighten his spirits. Unfortunately, there's no holiday cheer to be found among his fellow guests, who include a pompous novelist, a stuffy colonel, a dangerously ill-matched married couple, and an ailing old man. The one charming exception is orphaned teenager Candace Finbar, who takes Charles under her wing and introduces him to the island's beauty.

Five years ago, on Christmas night, a billionaire magnate, EB Ward lost his wife and children in a terrible house fire. Since then he has become known as the town’s Scrooge. And when his brother is killed in a tragic accident, EB is racked with guilt and pushed into further grief.

Tom Christmas came to picturesque Thornford Regis with his young daughter to escape the terrible experience of losing his wife in the city. Her murder sent him packing to the bucolic and charming town, where violent crime isn't supposed to happen and the greatest sin is supposed to be nothing a member of the clergy can't handle. Then, at the town fair, a woman is found murdered. Tom soon learnsthat everyone in Thornford Regis has a secret to hide - infidelity, theft, even past murders. Twelve Drummers Drumming showcases a lovely place to live and/or die....

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.

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.

While making merry at the York Christmas Book Fair, Kitt Hartley finds herself drawn into a murder mystery with a festive twist. The victim is Leonard Bell, a festival volunteer who suddenly drops dead during his performance of A Christmas Carol. The next day, police identify the cause of death as an unknown toxin. Fearing for his own life, Bell's lab partner Kevin Ripley enlists Kitt's help to track down the killer—before it's too late.

Christmas has arrived in Rudolph, New York, and Merry Wilkinson is looking forward to a much needed rest. But before that can happen, Luanne Ireland walks through her door. Luanne had asked Merry to help make decorations for her wedding, but has suddenly moved the wedding months earlier and is now demanding that everyone follow her lead, regardless of the cost. But that cost is much higher than anyone anticipated. When Luanne's fiance is found murdered at their proposed wedding venue, Merry resolves to restore peace and calm to the community of Rudolph.

It's the week before Thanksgiving, and Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs. Claus's Treasures, is preparing for a weekend reunion of her mother's college friends. But when the group of women comes into Merry's shop, Merry is met with frosty attitudes and cold hearts. The women argue amongst themselves constantly, and the bickering only intensifies after one of the friends is poisoned. With her father's role as Santa in danger due to his proximity to the crime, Merry will need to use all of her investigative gifts to wrap this mystery up and save Santa and her favorite holiday.

In Rudolph, Christmas in July heralds Santa's arrival by boat to begin his summer vacation at the lake, and Merry Wilkinson, owner of Mrs. Claus's Treasures, is looking forward to a busy weekend. But she's caught off guard when her ex-fiance, Max Folger, arrives with a team from a lifestyle magazine wanting to do a feature on the July festivities. It's clear that Max's visit has less to do with business and more to do with winning back Merry's heart. Merry has too much on her plate to deal with an old flame, but when Max is found strangled to death, she must find out who wanted him dead.

Now that Thanksgiving's behind her, vintage cookware enthusiast Jaymie Leighton Müller is excitedly making plans for the upcoming Dickens Days festival - the town's month-long celebration leading up to Christmas. With a hot cider booth on the village green to warm the hearts and bodies of the townsfolk and a diorama featuring a scene from A Christmas Carol, things are shaping up for a festive season - until the town's local Scrooge is found murdered, a vintage pudding mould covering his cracked skull.

Jolene Bails may come off as a tough-as-nails, no-nonsense kind of woman, but underneath it all, she has a softer side. Now that she has a Secret Santa who seems to know her well, she finds herself opening to the idea of wanting more from life. But first, she has to figure out who is leaving her mysterious gifts and why it is Wil, her old flame, is acting so strange.

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 . . .

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.

When financial executive Bob Vanags takes a job at ominous Turaida Bank in Latvia, he hopes to learn of his heritage and to fight economic fraud in Eastern Europe. Instead, Bob finds himself pulled into a world of political intrigue, blackmail, and murder. Aided by his son David, his beautiful colleague Agnese, and a fearless Latvian journalist named Santa Ezeriņa, Bob begins to unravel his employer’s darkest secrets, discovering their sins and conspiracies beyond his wildest fears. Secrets that Turaida wants to keep hidden, even at the cost of Bob’s life.

This Christmas, the stalker is far too close. Photographer Ivy Frost lives for capturing the perfect portrait—until her Secret Santa starts obsessively capturing her. It begins with a letter, then escalates to emails, texts, and more. She’s lonely but these unsettling messages prove she’s never truly alone. The stalker, fixated on the perfect life they never had, knows intimate details about Ivy’s past and stays uncomfortably close to her present. As the messages grow darker, Ivy’s paranoia spirals.

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.

The Darkness of New Orleans dozed fitfully during the war years, waiting for its chance to play with its toys again. It was a Darkness as carefully hidden as the gates to the small courtyards that lurk between buildings in the French Quarter. In the Le Prete Mansion, a movie is just now wrapping up, having spawned madness in trying to film a seductive tale of death and mystery. Disenfranchised spirits have been sent to the hell of their birth. One lost spirit has found a new home in the body of a French Quarter policewoman.

They think they are safe. Isn’t that sickening? They are decorating for Christmas. Twinkling lights. Wreaths. Mistletoe. Laughter. All that is missing is snow. They are the idea of a perfect family, aren’t they? I wonder how many of them are wishing for a Christmas miracle. How many of them only want peace? A night full of magic and wonder... Well. Not when I'm here. It’s a beautiful time to be the Groundskeeper. Turning miracles into nightmares.

A Christmas party is punctuated by a gunshot under a policeman’s watchful eye. A jewel heist is planned amidst the glitz and glamour of Oxford Street’s Christmas shopping. And lost in a snowstorm, a man finds a motive for murder.... This collection of mysteries explores the darker side of the festive season, from unexplained disturbances in the fresh snow to the darkness that lurks beneath the sparkling decorations.

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....