Christmas Thriller

It’s Christmastime, and the precocious Flavia de Luce—an eleven-year-old sleuth with a passion for chemistry and a penchant for crime-solving—is tucked away in her laboratory, whipping up a concoction to ensnare Saint Nick. But she is soon distracted when a film crew arrives at Buckshaw, the de Luces’ decaying English estate, to shoot a movie starring the famed Phyllis Wyvern.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects more than 50 of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories - many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

Reluctant lawyer Andy Carpenter is at the Tara Foundation’s annual Christmas party. The dog rescue organization has always been his true calling, and this is one holiday tradition he can get behind because every dog that’s come through the rescue—and their families—are invited to celebrate. This year’s party is no exception. But before the stockings can be hung by the chimney with care, homicide detectives ruin the evening. Derek Moore, one of the foundation’s best foster volunteers, is arrested for murder.

The holidays have arrived, and Hannah and her good pal, Lisa, have agreed to provide all the goodies for the town's annual production of A Christmas Carol. But before anyone can say "bah, humbug!" a Santa-size sackful of trouble ensues. Like the fact that Lisa's husband will be playing Mr. Claus to his ex-girlfriend Phyllis Bates' Mrs. Claus. Or that before the curtains even go up, Phyllis is found dead in the snow - wearing a costume that the real Mrs. Claus would put on the naughty list.

An English bobbie returning from night patrol finds a corpse in evening dress locked in the stocks on the village green. He identifies the body immediately. Andrew Vereker was not a well-loved man, and narrowing down the suspects is not going to be an easy job. The Vereker family are corrupt and eccentric - and hardly cooperative. It's another case for the resourceful Superintendent Hannasyde, who sets off on the trail of a killer so cunning that even his consummate powers of detection are tested to their limits.

Christmas is not an easy time to sell a house, but in Boston tycoon John Bragdon, Cabot Cove Realtor Eve Simpson has found a buyer for the old Jarvis homestead. Unfortunately, Eve gets a lump of coal in her stocking in the form of Kenny Jarvis, who has been missing for years and presumed dead but has now come back to stop his sister from selling their childhood home. Eve presses on, organizing a welcome dinner for Bragdon and his wife, Marlene, to meet the leading citizens of the town, including Jessica Fletcher.

It is no ordinary Christmas at Lexham Manor. Six holiday guests find themselves the suspects of a murder enquiry when the old Scrooge, Nathaniel Herriad, who owns the substantial estate, is found stabbed in the back. Whilst the delicate matter of inheritance could be the key to this crime, the real conundrum is how any of the suspects could have entered the locked room to commit this foul deed. For Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard, 'tis the season to find whodunit.

DI James Walker is ready for a quiet family Christmas in the sleepy village of Kirkby Abbey. But when he opens an early Christmas present left on his doorstep, he soon realises it is no gift. Inside is a gruesome surprise and a promise - 12 days, 12 murders. Not long after, the first body is found, half frozen in the snow. As the blizzards descend, panic spreads through the remote Cumbrian village - there’s a killer amongst them, and with 11 more victims to go, anyone could be next.... Can James stop the killer before they strike again?

Lily Bard is going home for the holidays. More comfortable in baggy sweats than bridesmaid's frills, Lilly isn't thrilled about attending her estranged sister's wedding. She has moved to Shakespeare, Arkansas, to start a new life, cleaning houses for a living, trying to forget the violence that once nearly destroyed her. Now she's heading back to home and hearth - just in time for murder.

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.

Annie Murray's festive plans at the Secret Bookcase are thrown into disarray when a celebrity baker drops dead during a gingerbread-baking competition… As whispers of foul play swirl like snowflakes, Annie soon finds herself tangled in a web of secrets, small-town rivalry, and long-buried mysteries. With pub owner and new love Liam by her side and the help of her loyal bookstore colleagues, Annie sets out to solve Redwood Grove’s latest murder mystery.

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…

Christmas in Birmingham means the Frankfurt Christmas Market. Loved and hated by brummies in equal measure, it certainly makes life interesting for West Midlands Police. But when the body of a homeless man is found behind a market stall early one Sunday morning, it looks like Christmas might be cancelled for DI Zoe Finch and her team. And when they discover that the victim has a history that makes his death politically sensitive, things get even more complicated.

Reindeer Games Christmas Tree Farm is going into the B&B business, and Holly White is looking forward to her new role as innkeeper. Even better, Mistletoe, Maine's sheriff, Evan Gray, has deputized his little sister, Libby, to help Holly wrap presents for Mistletoe's toy drive. But a cold wind ruffles the cheery holiday decorations when a new guest checks in: Cleo, a vicious B&B critic who could make or break the new inn. And the short December days turn even darker when Evan and Libby find Cleo's dead body in the gift-wrapped toy donation box.

Olive and Jasper have never been closer—except for one thing. Jasper is still reticent about his frequent disappearances from polite society. With the holidays approaching and no paying client on the books, Olive decides to shadow Jasper when he’s unexpectedly called away. Her search brings her to Holly Hill Lodge where an eclectic group has gathered to celebrate an old-fashioned English Christmas. When the butler goes missing, Olive and Jasper must work together to solve the Christmas crime—as well as the secret Jasper hides.

As the holidays draw near in Caerphilly, Mother volunteers to take part in a big Christmas-themed decorator show house - each room of a temporarily untenanted house is decorated to the hilt by a different decorator for the public to tour. Of course, Mother insists that Meg pitch in with the organization, and she finds herself surrounded by flamboyant personalities with massive egos clashing and feeling their professional reputations are at stake.

Semi-retired private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is suffering from depression after a miscarriage following her adventure in San Francisco during the earthquake of 1906. She and her husband, Daniel, are invited for Christmas at a mansion on the Hudson, and they gratefully accept, expecting a peaceful and relaxing holiday season. Not long after they arrive, however, they start to feel the tension in the house's atmosphere.

Forty-eight hours until Christmas, Jessica Kane wakes up with blurred vision, ears ringing, and in excruciating pain. A gash in her head and blood running down her face, the last thing she remembers is going for a run and something or someone hitting her in the head. It doesn't take her long to realize she is trapped in an unknown, deserted town with five other strangers who share similar stories of being attacked and stranded there. Unsure why and how they got there, she knows one thing for certain, she has to find a way out.

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.

As Hannah prepares to run a bakery and move out of her mother's house, it'll be a true miracle if she can prevent another yuletide disaster by solving a mystery as dense as a Christmas fruitcake....