Holiday Mystery Thriller

I sit sipping champagne in the warm water, bubbles frothing around me as I admire the breathtaking view of gorgeous blue skies and mountains. I can’t believe I’m here, at this stunning holiday home. It’s to die for....

Mae West's first Christmas as a married woman at Happy Trails Campground should've been merry and bright. But when a Winter Festival turns deadly and one of their own lands on the suspect list, Mae and the Laundry Club ladies know there's more to unwrap than just presents.

On his way home to San Diego, PI Patrick Kincaid takes a detour through San Francisco to check on the wellbeing of a family friend who's mysteriously been unreachable. What he doesn't expect is to be shot at before he can find out why attorney Elle Santana won't ask the police for help in finding a missing girl. Soon, he's on the run from both good guys and bad as he and Elle race to find the witness and take down a sweatshop run by a corrupt businessman with a penchant for violence.

The halls are decked, the deck is stacked, and here comes that jolly old elf. Junior Bender, divorced father of one and burglar extraordinaire, finds himself stuck inside the Edgerton Mall, and not just as a last-minute shopper (though he is that too). Edgerton isn't exactly the epicenter of holiday cheer, despite its two Santas, canned Christmas music, chintzy bows, and festive lights. The mall is a fossil of an industry in decline; many of its stores are closed, and to make matters worse, there is a rampant shoplifting problem.

Christopher Gilhaney isn't a popular man, and he proves why once again when he insults every guest at Abigail Chase's Guy Fawkes Night dinner party. When Gilhaney is shot dead under the cover of the night's fireworks, his murder is deemed a robbery gone wrong. But when the case hasn't been solved six weeks later, Inspector Witherspoon is called upon to find the killer - and quickly!

Christopher Miller is up against a group of domestic terrorists who are copying Al Qaeda's tactics: operating in cells, following a twisted fundamentalist doctrine, targeting "public amusements". A White Supremacist hate group has smuggled in a stinger missile and recruited an army marksman: a nightmare vision of a new and more talented Timothy McVeigh. Their initial plan is to bring down an airliner as it takes off from JFK airport.

The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of Jack and the Beanstalk to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes. Of course, there’s also the matter of the dead body onstage. Who could possibly have had the victim on their naughty list?

Part-time bookstore clerk, part-time author, necromancer in training, and full-time caretaker of a ghoul are titles that Ava Harper never dreamed of applying to herself.

Several years have passed since the war with the djevels ended, the reality they'd infested was destroyed, and their king killed. But that left Sean and the lions faced with another problem: the million or so djevels currently in the world that needed to be hunted down and killed. Part of the solution was to fence in the biggest area that was infested to stop them from spreading any further, while teams began hunting down the ones that had escaped. It's not an easy job, but it's a lot easier than the previous one by far.

The five of us have been friends since we were children. We think we know every scar, every secret, every story. But by the third night, one of us will be dead. How far will we go to keep our secrets hidden? And when does being close to someone start becoming dangerous?

Rosemary Bell's got a brand new bag. She has a great circle of friends, a sexy Irish boyfriend, and a daughter following in her witchy footsteps. But when she becomes the prime suspect in her grinch husband's disappearance, the halls she'll be decking might be behind bars. Things get even bleaker when she's called home to clean up her husband's mess. When Rosie finds clues about a family she never knew she had, she realizes she doesn't know as much about her past as she thought. And her present isn't much better, when the local sheriff joins the investigation into her crimes.

In Sea Harbor, the holidays mean cozy fires, festive carols, and soft skeins of yarn waiting to become hats and sweaters and scarves. And this year, Izzy and the other Seaside Knitters are also knitting tiny ornaments to decorate a tree for the first annual tree-trimming contest. Their holiday cheer is multiplied when Izzy's younger brother, Charlie Chambers, unexpectedly arrives to volunteer at a local clinic. He brings with him outspoken hitchhiker Amber Hanson, who is returning to Sea Harbor to claim an inheritance.

Meg's sister-in-law, Delaney, is pregnant. Since her due date is on or around Christmas Day, this is putting a bit of a damper on the usual holiday festivities. Meg and Michael are NOT hosting the usual house full of relatives and parties. Instead, Meg, along with her mother, her grandmother, her cousin Rose Noire, and her good friend Caroline, are militantly doing everything they can think of to keep Delaney quiet and healthy.

When Robert Catesby, the charismatic son of a Catholic gentleman, marries heiress Catherine Leigh and inherits the rich Oxfordshire manor house at Aston from his grandmother, it seems that the future happiness of the couple must be assured. However, Robert’s deep involvement in plots to overthrow the Protestant queen Elizabeth I and his increasingly dangerous behavior threaten the lives of his wife and their young son.

For Lucy Stone, the best thing about Christmas in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, has always been the annual Cookie Exchange. But the usual generosity and goodwill are missing from this year’s event, which turns out to be a complete disaster. Petty rivalries and feuds that have long been simmering finally come to a boil, leaving a bad taste in the mouths of many guests, including Lee Cummings - who accuses Tucker Whitney of stealing her recipe for low-fat, sugar-free cookies. But the icing on the cake is when Tucker is found strangled in her apartment the following morning.

This anthology contains Angels in the Snow, The Good Shepherd, and Welcome to Bethlehem.

Regency widow Lily Adler is looking forward to a quiet Christmastide away from the schemes and secrets she witnessed daily in London. Not only will she be visiting the family of her late husband; she will be reunited with Captain Jack Hartley, her friend and confidante, finally returned after a long voyage at sea. But secrets aren’t only found in London. Jack’s younger sister, Amelia, is the center of neighborhood scandal and gossip. She refuses to tell anyone what really happened, even when an unexpected snowstorm strands the neighborhood families together after a Christmas ball.

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?

Antoine Verlaque, examining magistrate for the beautiful town of Aix-en-Provence, doesn't like Christmas. The decorations appear in the shops far too early, festive tourists swarm the streets, and his beloved Cours Mirabeau is lined with chalets selling what he regards as tacky trinkets. But his wife and partner Marine Bonnet is determined to make this a Christmas they can both enjoy, beginning with the carol sing at the Cathedral Saint Sauveur, a beautiful service in a packed church. Just as the holiday cheer is in full swing, a man is poisoned, sending the community into a tailspin.

Two years ago, Fran’s sister, Jenna, disappeared on a wellness retreat in the Mediterranean that went terribly wrong. Tom Wade, the now infamous man behind Soul Shrink Retreats, has just been released from prison after serving his sentence for the deaths of two people. But he has never let on what happened to the third victim: Jenna. Determined to find out the truth, Fran books herself onto his upcoming retreat—the first since his release—and finds herself face-to-face with the man who might hold the key to her sister’s disappearance.