Holiday Thriller

When Bessie Cubbon’s best friend, Doona Moore, wins a week’s stay at an English holiday park, she’s quick to invite Bessie to join her. Bessie isn’t sure the destination, hugely popular with families with small children, is one she would have chosen herself, but with all their expenses paid, she’s determined to make the best of it. They’ve only just unpacked when Doona gets an unexpected and unwelcome surprise. The next morning, the pair find a dead body and Doona’s the prime suspect in a murder investigation far from home.

If love for his father makes a man weak, what’ll happen when he gives his heart to a woman? When Special Agent Finnegan O'Reilly gets shot, and the news brings on his father’s heart attack, he decides to take leave from further undercover assignments. The O'Reilly has suffered enough, and Finn can’t be the cause of more distress for this beloved old rascal. Unexpectedly, his boss forces one more case on him - to take place in their own pub.

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.

Ainsley decides to set aside her search for answers to her past and enjoy her first Gooseberry Christmas by volunteering along with the rest of the gang for the Christmas festival on the boardwalk. Normally Ainsley didn’t bother much with Christmas and all its trappings, but this year she is excited to join in as most of the locals are prone to do. Of course it does put a bit of a damper on the festivities when a body is found in the tree lot where the gang had offered to help out.

Christmas is on trial, and time is running out. Attorney Thad Raker represents an eccentric client living in a house with a Christmas secret. When the county goes to court to take the client’s property, Raker must battle conspiring adversaries, a cantankerous judge, and his own personal feelings and doubts. If he loses the case, Christmas won’t come for hundreds of thousands of children. Can Raker save Christmas and, in the process, save himself?

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.

Adventszeit 1881. Im Stadtgraben von Nürnberg wird ein Junge tot aufgefunden. Im Mund entdeckt die Polizei ein Stückchen Lebkuchen. Wenig später wird der Ratsherr Jakobus Ehrenhoff am Henkersteg aufgeknüpft. Um seinen Hals baumelt der Rest eines vergifteten Lebkuchenherzens. Pistoux scheint der rechte Mann an der rechten Stelle zu sein, denn die Ermittlungen drehen sich im Kreis und der in einer stadtbekannten Zuckerbäckerei arbeitende Meisterkoch kennt sich aus mit dem Gebäck.

Elizabeth and friends prepare to celebrate Christmas, with all its joys and complications. Not to mention short-staffing at the local TV station with changes to come. But that’s not all Elizabeth has on her plate for the holidays. Someone’s put a wish on the Christmas Wishing Tree set up at KWMT-TV that has her name on it...and it’s a weird one.

It's the Christmas season, and Mr. Timothy Cratchit, not the pious child the world thought he was, has just buried his father. He's also struggling to bury his past as a cripple and shed his financial ties to his benevolent "Uncle" Ebenezer by losing himself in the thick of London's underbelly. He boards at a brothel in exchange for teaching the mistress how to read and spends his nights dredging the Thames for dead bodies and the treasures in their pockets.

Called to investigate the bloodstained aftermath of an eventful Christmas party, detectives Anderson & Costello discover that the holiday season can be anything but merry. A family man is stabbed to death at a crowded Christmas Ice Show. Murder in plain sight. No clues, no witnesses, no known motive.

One summer. One stranger. One killer.... Two bad things happened that summer: a stranger arrived. And the first girl disappeared. In the wake of the crime that rocked her hometown, Felicity fled, knowing more than she let on. But 16 years later, her new life is shattered by the news that a second girl has gone missing in Sidmouth.

Kyle Colbert just wants to go home for Christmas. So, why does everyone suddenly want to kill him? Kyle savors his train commute from a hectic Manhattan job to his idyllic, small town. But as he arrives on Christmas Eve, his family tries to kill him. His neighbors and the entire community suddenly want him dead. He can’t flee to the authorities because even the FBI is in a deadly pursuit.

Newcomers to Tinker's Cove, Ty and Heather Moon have moved into a dilapidated house reputed to be a haven for ghosts. Now strange noises and flickering lights erupt from the house at all hours and neighborly relations are on edge. And when a local boy goes missing near the house, it's up to Lucy Stone to unravel the mystery of the eccentric couple and their increasingly frightful behavior.

It's Christmastime, but not everyone is jolly - especially not Vonne Barnett. Her dead body has been found in Victoria Square. Katie Bonner, the manager of Artisan's Alley, happens to be at the tea shop Vonne's mother, Francine, owns when the news is delivered. Vonne left a trail of men behind her so the suspects are many - but the clues are few. A broken teacup leads Katie to one of the suspects, but before she can investigate, she's attacked. Katie may be closing in on a murderer, but time is ticking because the murderer is definitely closing in on her.

Lori Maddox chooses to spend the year after university travelling and visits China, where she finds casual work as a private English tutor. Back in Manchester her parents, Joanna and Tom, who separated when Lori was a toddler, follow her adventures on her blog. When Joanna and Tom hear nothing for weeks, they become increasingly concerned and travel out to Chengdu in search of their daughter.

When the bewitching Diana Ravenscroft comes to quiet Tinker's Cove and opens Solstice, a quaint little shop offering everything from jewelry to psychic readings, Lucy Stone writes her off as eccentric but harmless. Even after Diana gives her a disturbingly accurate reading, Lucy can’t help but befriend the newcomer. But not everyone in town is so enchanted. And when Lucy stumbles upon a dead body near her home, she can’t shake the feeling that something ominous is lurking in the crisp October air...

Roasted chestnuts from vendor’s carts, fresh-cut spruce trees lining the sidewalks, extravagant gifts, opulent dinners, carols at St Patrick’s Cathedral, a warm meal, and a few of minutes shelter from the cold at one of the charitable food lines. It’s Christmas in Gilded Age Manhattan. And for the first time ever an amazing giant ball will drop along a rod on the roof of the New York Times building to ring in the New Year. Everyone plans to attend the event. But the murder of a prominent newsman hits a little too close to home.

Christmas is right around the corner. Fresh off the Christmas Pawrade and Central Park tree lightening, Honey Springs is buzzing with the excitement of the season. Roxy Bloom and Patrick Cane are hosting the ultimate Christmas Day Diner for all of their friends and family at The Bean Hive. Roxy has been so busy with her Jingle Bells Lattes and planning the party that Patrick whisks her off for a romantic dinner at the Watershed for some alone time.

Christmas has come to Chicago and Vivian Witchell is looking forward to nothing more than spending the holidays with family and friends - and maybe spotting her picture in a few radio magazines. But the discovery of a mysterious envelope stuffed with cash in her late father's study sets Vivian into a tailspin, as she discovers that her beloved father may not have been exactly who she thought he was, and who may in fact have been working with the most notorious mob boss of the time.

How is one to start again after losing the one thing that speaks to your heart and fuels your passion? After a serious accident leaves Calliope Rose Collins unable to continue with the career that has owned her soul for most of her life, she returns to Foxtail Lake, Hollister House, and Great Aunt Gracie. After solving the murder of a local girl she begins writing freelance articles for the local newspaper. This turns into a full time career and a new passion and inner healing is found.