Christmas Thriller

Debbie and her brothers were brutally murdered 40 years ago. These ghost teens from the 1970s have nowhere else to turn. They’re trapped in the room where they were cruelly killed, and they need help from today’s teenagers if they ever hope to escape. But there’s one big problem: Debbie and her family have no idea how to communicate with the living. Can the ghost teens find a way to reach out? Or will they be stuck in death forever?

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. In this festive short story featuring Francis Durbridge’s favourite debonair amateur detective, Paul Temple journeys to Switzerland to identify an elusive criminal.

Devon Sanders, a private investigator known for his efficiency and discretion, is planning on being alone for the holiday season. His plans change when a case takes him to a small town in the mountains, where he learns that it's not such a small world after all.

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.

Christmas should be the happiest time, but at Pennington’s dramas are seething beneath the surface. For Cornelia Culford, a divorce hearing looms where she could lose custody of her sons to her unfaithful husband. For Stephen Gower, being head of security at Pennington's is the perfect refuge from a tragic past at Scotland Yard. But soon Joseph Carter and Elizabeth Pennington beg him to help solve the murder of Joseph's first wife, now that the killer has struck again.

It's Christmas Eve in Santa Fe, but among the revelers on Canyon Road, a decidedly unholy scene is taking place. A desperate man, dressed all in black, feverishly seeks refuge for himself and the squirming bundle he holds tightly against his chest. Agent Paul Kagan's bundle is a baby who has the power to change the course of global events. His pursuers are his former colleagues -- members of the Russian mafia who will stop at nothing to accomplish their mission.

A Christmas skiing retreat turns treacherous when Pacific Northwest K-9 Unit officer Veronica Eastwood’s sister is kidnapped—and only rival officer Parker Walsh can help her in Katy Lee’s Yuletide Ransom. And in Sharee Stover’s explosive Holiday Rescue Countdown, K-9 officers Dylan Jeong and Brandie Weller must race against the clock when they face a Christmas parade bomb threat…and a killer from Dylan’s past.

The Christmas season is supposed to be a time of joy and celebration. But for Private Investigator Melody Clue, the holidays can quickly go awry, as she discovers in this three-story collection.

The Vengeful One: A Christmas Tale, the second novel by Aydin Guner, takes the listener on an exhilarating journey of magic and wonder. Adam Goldman is alarmed by a ruckus in the early hours of Christmas morning and nervously leaves his bedroom to investigate. Frightened by an ominous figure, he hits the perceived burglar over the head with a vase. After the subsiding shock, he turns on the light, and to his horror, lying before him is a motionless Santa Claus.

Finding a severed hand at a client's house might throw lesser decorators off their games. But Chloe Carstairs and her mother, Amanda, won't let a little thing like murder keep them from decking the halls. With a body under the partridge's pear tree and a dead Santa in a sleigh, they have to crack the case before the killer strikes again - this time much too close to home.

Mamie Simon is a grim and miserly old banker who rules over the financial world from the top of her Gotham City tower - and she absolutely hates Bitcoin. On Christmas Eve, she discovers Bob Cratchit, her chief clerk, is leaving his banker's job with her in order to follow the path of Bitcoin. The cringey hag blows her top upon hearing this news, and a battle of wits and wills ensues. Will Bob Cratchit succeed in following his Bitcoin dream, or will cold, heartless Mamie Simon succeed in stopping him? You'll have to listen to the story to find out!

A renovation. In the countryside. Just over an hour's train ride from London. An ideal family home. Sold unseen. At auction. Married couple Al and Liz Greenaway love London, but when they discover an impressive country property for sale. A fine house. Once. Solitary, romantic, isolated, and quiet. So quiet that, for the first time in years, Liz can hear her own thoughts as long buried memories emerge. And there's an echo in them, a whisper... For someone else in the house, memories are emerging too.

Rediscover your inner child! Rediscover your inner child in this magical Christmas mystery as you follow the lonely Emma Harper through the enchanting town of Pottsville during the height of Christmas merriment. When Emma's mysterious new friend, Penelope, convinces her to break into the old cookie factory, her life is instantly filled with adventure and purpose. Emma soon becomes captive to Penelope’s spunky personality, but when strange, enchanting things begin to happen around Penelope, Emma suddenly begins to question the reality of her new friend.

When Gavin’s son, Kenneth, followed him into the Police Service, neither of them thought that he would make the headlines (or the statistics) as a valiant officer killed in the course of his duty. However, only days before Christmas, a routine raid on a cannabis farm turns into tragedy when Kenny is mown down by a fast-moving motor vehicle while attempting to arrest one of the gang.

The 12 crimes of Christmas: Bart Sagan is a thief, yes, but more or less a good guy - at least, he wouldn’t rob an orphanage if he didn’t have to. Not at Christmastime, anyway. But then the local crime boss, Harry King, loses a shipment of drugs and orders Bart to burglarize the 12 addresses to which it’s been accidentally sent. Can Bart and his ragtag band of independent criminals keep their Christmas spirit while breaking and entering at the behest of a drug lord? Can they keep their lives if they don’t?

Tradition is just another ritual, and rituals are written to be remembered. Be careful which rituals you practice, my friend, for they call out to things well hidden...to horrors best left unknown.

With the holidays approaching, amateur sleuth Geneva Pomolo takes a minor role in a community theatre’s musical stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol. A lifelong Dickens fan, Geneva is hoping for a calm respite from the rigors of crime-solving, but her stage debut proves anything but calming. The cast is stacked with powerful egos who have deluded themselves into thinking they deserve a career in Hollywood — such as Peter Vankirk, who lands the starring role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

Becky Tibbs is a sweet and innocent young woman. She’s never been in love or had a real romantic relationship. On the other hand, she is very adept at helping recently departed spirits with their unfinished business in Asheville, North Carolina. This is the third book in the Becky Tibbs cozy mystery series. During her recent abduction, Detective Patrick Burns found Becky on the brink of death.

Jill is deep into preparations for Christmas parties at the Boathouse Event Center, when a trip to the local retirement home with her son's preschool class turns up a deadly surprise. For once, Jill has no tie to the murder victim, until a surprise connection to a family member is revealed.

When Aunt Butty gets an idea in her head, there is simply no stopping her. At least, Lady Rample has never found a way. And what Aunt Butty wants is a proper, old-fashioned English country Christmas. So, it’s no surprise when Lady Rample finds herself celebrating the holidays deep in the Cotswolds. And naturally, Aunt Butty requires everything to be perfect, from the Yule log to the wassail.