Holiday Mystery Thriller

Ledbury, December 1892. Detective Inspector Ravenscroft looks forward to spending a quiet Christmas with his family. Then he receives news that an old friend stands accused of a brutal murder. Ravenscroft and Detective Sergeant Crabb travel to the old Worcestershire market town of Bromsgrove to investigate. But events soon take a deadly dramatic turn. As the bad weather closes in on the two detectives, Ravenscroft begins to wonder whether they will make it home for Christmas.

Mounds of delicious candy corn, jack-o-lanterns, and spooky hayrides are all part of this year's Halloween festivities in Paramour Bay. Raven Marigold plans to make the most out of this All Hallows' Eve, which just so happens to be her birthday. Not everyone in town seems to have gotten the festive memo, though. One of the residents is claiming that the spirit of her dead husband has been paying her nocturnal visits, while other townsfolk are making similar claims about their deceased relatives.

Winter in Sea Harbor is a feast for the senses—crackling bonfires, the scent of snow in the salty air, carols ringing out on the village green. This year, the Seaside Knitters have a sack full of obligations in addition to their usual Christmas preparations. Meanwhile, the holidays are kicking off in style at Mayor Beatrice Scaglia’s holiday party, where a well-dressed crowd admires the mayor’s new home and celebrity chef. An additional treat for Ben and Nell Endicott is reconnecting with a dear college friend. But it’s not just reunions and the appetizers that are to die for.

'Tis the season in Paterson, New Jersey: Lawyer Andy Carpenter and his golden retriever, Tara, are surrounded by holiday cheer. It’s even spread to the Tara Foundation. The dog rescue organization, not used to having puppies, has their hands full with a recent litter. Eight puppies are a lot to handle, and Andy is relieved when his co-worker Chris Myers agrees to foster them. Myers, a newer employee at the Tara Foundation, did time for a crime he swears he didn’t commit. When Myers discovers a key witness against him lied on the stand, he goes to Andy to ask for representation.

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.

When Lou Prescott bought the bookstore at Holiday Bay, she wanted it to be so much more than a quaint seaside business. She wanted it to be home to the cozy gathering of friends, she knew in her heart, would come together to share their lives, their hardships, and their victories. With the change of the seasons, comes shorter days, cozy fireside get-togethers in the courtyard, and a new mystery or Lou and her group of amateur sleuths to solve.

After suffering a personal tragedy Abby Sullivan buys a seaside mansion, packs up her life in San Francisco, and moves to Holiday Bay Maine, where she is adopted, quite against her will, by a huge Maine Coon Cat named Rufus, a drifter with her own tragic past named Georgia, and a giant dog with an inferiority complex named Ramos.

It's Christmastime, and farmer Lucy Resnick is living the life she's always dreamed of. When she's not selling her jams, soaps, and mistletoe bundles at the Buttercup Christmas Market, she's enjoying cozy evenings by the fire with her knitting group - or her handsome veterinarian boyfriend Tobias Brandt. But less than a week before Christmas, a pall falls over the festive atmosphere when local man Randy Stone turns up with a knife in his back and a sprig of mistletoe in his hair.

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.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Violet Parker has one request on her list for Santa - to make it home to her kids. Unfortunately, “home” is also the lair of her life-long nemesis, her sister Susan, aka the devil’s concubine. Standing in Violet’s way is Old Man Winter, who slammed the Black Hills with a show-stopping blizzard. However, a little snow isn’t going to ground her sleigh, not with family counting on her to deliver Santa’s goods.

When local businessman Jed Greenberg is found dead with a Chocolate lab whimpering over his body, the police start sniffing around Robbie Jordan's country restaurant for answers. Was it something in Robbie's hot cocoa that killed Jed, or was it Cocoa the dog? As the suspects pile as high as her holiday tree, Robbie attempts to get to the bottom of the sickly sweet murder.

Peace on Earth isn’t everyone’s cup of tea in Charlotte MacLeod’s “A Cozy for Christmas”. Peter Lovesey’s “The Haunted Crescent” delivers a holiday ghost story with a twist. A training session for department-store Santas turns up Saint Nicks who are anything but angels in Isaac Asimov’s “Ho, Ho, Ho”. Marcia Muller’s “Silent Night” finds a tough private investigator searching San Francisco’s Tenderloin district - and discovering something unexpected.

When a farmer is found dead in his own pumpkin patch, Abby and her tenant Tripp have to find the real killer before an innocent man is put away for life.

Maggie Crozat is back home in bayou country during the most magical time of the year. In Pelican, Louisiana, Christmastime is a season of giant bonfires on the levee, zydeco carols, and pots of gumbo. Except, this year, the Grinch has come to stay at the family-run Crozat Plantation B&B. When he floods travel websites with vicious reviews, Maggie thinks she's identified him as rival businessman Donald Baxter. That is, until he's found stabbed to death at Maggie's workplace. And Maggie and her loved ones become top suspects.

Right before Christmas, Fair Haven is celebrating its annual Ice Fishing Jubilee. When a bad-mannered lawyer is found frozen to death inside his fishing shack, the police soon discover he was really shot. The prime suspect is local ice-fishing legend Jim Campbell, but Maggie thinks he is innocent. The culprit could be the long-suffering wife or the mistress, and soon, Maggie is off doing her own investigating, dragging Joshua along for the ride. As her boss, Joshua couldn’t possibly be romantically interested in her. So why did he hold her so close at the town dance?

It's the most wonderful time of the year, but private investigator Liz Talbot is struggling to feel festive. She hasn't seen her best friend, Colleen, in weeks and fears she may never see her again in this life. Meanwhile Nate, Liz's husband and partner, is spending money like he prints it in the attic on a mysterious family Christmas celebration. Liz's nerves are shot, and she hasn't even decked a single hall. But there's simply no time to fret.

Lucy Stone is in the doghouse with her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Prudence Pratt. It seems that Kudo, the Stones’ misbehaving mutt, has developed a taste for Mrs. Pratt’s blue-ribbon-winning chickens, as well as an escape artist’s talent for sneaking out. With the Fourth of July coming up, Lucy doesn’t want to set off any more fireworks with the crabby Prudence.

Some say that casting crusty attorney Allen Sharpe as Scrooge in the Kindred Players production of A Christmas Carol is just playing to type. He's not the most beloved man in town. In fact, you'd have a dickens of a time finding someone who liked him. Still, it's a shock when the Ghost of Christmas Past stabs him during the first rehearsal. Suzanne, the co-owner of the Cackleberry Club Cafe (Kindred's favorite combination diner, craft store, and bookshop), chases the murderer out of the building but loses him in the alley. As the days pass, the list of suspects grows longer.

It's a week before Christmas, and my quaint holiday town, Marshmallow Hollow, is chock-a-block with seasonal activities. Some less fun than others...like the ice sculpting competition my bestie, Stiles, has talked me into. Let's just say, as a pair, Michelangelo we ain't. I'm secretly relieved when our epically awful ice display gets damaged. It gives me a chance to watch my new beau, Hobbs, compete in the sled race. But not five seconds in, and Hobbs' sled-loving dog, Stephen King, escapes my grip to get in on the action - and boy, does he.

After suffering a personal tragedy, Abby Sullivan buys a huge old seaside mansion she has never even seen, packs up her life in San Francisco, and moves to Holiday Bay Maine, where she is adopted, quite against her will, by a huge Maine Coon Cat named Rufus, a drifter with her own tragic past named Georgia, and a giant dog with an inferiority complex named Ramos. What Abby thought she needed was alone time to heal. What she ended up with was, an inn she never knew she wanted, a cat she couldn't seem to convince to leave, and a new family she'd never be able to live without.