Christmas Mystery Thriller

When Gina Temple decides to go Christmas shopping for her girlfriend, Detective Sergeant Kate Brannon, in the Norfolk town of King's Lynn, it seems like an easy enough task. If only life were that simple. A split-second event, months in the planning, tips their safe world upside down.

Le 1er décembre, Edie O'Sullivan, octogénaire acariâtre et solitaire, trouve sur le pas de sa porte un mystérieux colis. En le déballant, elle découvre une boîte de puzzle qu'elle s'empresse d'assembler. Des carreaux noirs et blancs éclaboussés de sang, un cadavre... ce n'est autre qu'une scène de crime ! Un message menaçant accompagne le colis : quatre personnes mourront à minuit, la veille de Noël, si Edie ne parvient pas à rassembler tous les indices pour arrêter l'assassin.

Detective John Hooper, William Monk's right-hand man at the Thames River Police, is blissfully happy in his new marriage to Celia, the cousin of a victim in one of the river police's recent murder cases. Celia wants the same happiness for her good friend Clementine, who's just announced her engagement to Seth Marlowe, a fellow member of her church. Christmas is nearing, and this should be extra cause for celebration, but when Marlowe begins receiving threatening letters about his first wife's death, it becomes clear that he is far from the devout man Clementine thought he was.

It’s Christmas in Riddleton and crime-novelist-turned-amateur-sleuth Jen is in desperate need of a cozy festive season running the town's local bookstore. But, between trying to drum up business for Ravenous Readers and attempting to finish her latest novel, Jen is totally run off her feet. Matters get worse, however, when a man's body is found outside the bookstore, along with a scrap of paper in his pocket with none other than Jen's address on it!

It’s almost Christmas, and Courtney is trying to come up with great ways to promote the shelter. Through a lucky connection, she gets the chance to bring the adoptable pets to the local news station to be on TV!

With only days left until Christmas, uncle Albert is in a tizzy. The annual Twelve-Birds-Of-Christmas Dinner is looming, and his scheme to procure a copy of the latest book craze to sweep the Royal Society for Natural History Appreciation has been thwarted. Now, in a desperate bid to secure a Christmas miracle, Lady Caroline and Uncle Albert travel to an isolated castle on the Yorkshire moors in pursuit of the only available copy of the coveted book.

The festive month is kicking off in style, and Pearl is rushed off her feet with her restaurant, The Whitstable Pearl. She’s also busy planning her own family Christmas and providing mulled wine for a charity church fundraiser when Christmas cards begin arriving all over town - filled with spiteful messages from an anonymous writer. Pearl’s curiosity is piqued, but having pledged not to take on a case at her detective agency before Christmas, she reluctantly agrees that Canterbury’s DCI Mike McGuire should take over, poisoned pen cards are after all a matter for the police.

Christmas is all about lists. To do lists. Shopping lists. Lists to bloody Santa. And doesn’t Anna Johnson know it. Waking up on Christmas Eve after the annual Johnson party, she's hungover, exhausted and really sick and tired of Christmas already. All she wants is to tick the last things off her endless list and sit down with the world’s biggest glass of wine. ​A mysterious death in her home really is the last thing she has time for right now, but with police officers and a husband and two kids intent on watching Christmas films, it looks like it’s up to her.

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.

If you love small towns, endearing relationships, food, animals, and a touch of murder, you will love this new mystery series by Kathi Daley, author of the popular Zoe Donovan Cozy Mystery Series. Set in the small town of White Eagle, Montana, the series features Tess and her dog Tilly, who spend their days delivering the latest gossip along with the daily mail. When a close friend is murdered, Tess and Tilly join forces with the reclusive genius in town to sleuth out the truth behind the shocking murder that is rocking the community as it prepares for the annual Christmas Festival.

The year is 1857, soon after the tragic Siege of Cawnpore. In the British garrison, a guard is killed and an Indian prisoner escapes, which leads to yet more British deaths. Cries for revenge are overwhelming. Despite no witnesses and no evidence against him, a luckless British medical orderly named John Tallis is arrested as an accomplice simply because he was the only soldier unaccounted for when these baffling crimes were committed.

Henry Rathbone is called by an old friend whose son has gone missing 10 days before the Christmas holiday. Now in his early twenties, Lucien has known trouble for some time and has often fallen victim to the vices of drugs, alcohol and women. His father now fears the worst. Their old friend and reformed brothel-owner, Squeaky Robinson, volunteers to help. Henry agrees and, joined by Crow, a young doctor at the clinic, the pair trawls the pubs, brothels, and opium dens of the West End in search of clues.

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?

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.

Don't make an enemy of the mob. Still recuperating after being shot, Alexander Fairhaven has a new challenge to deal with - his brother's gambling addiction. As Alexander and Elizabeth settle into their new lives together, the shadows of Nick's problems linger. Will Nick find a way to escape his demons? Or will New Year's bring an end to Alexander and Elizabeth's happiness?

It's almost Christmas and, in a ballroom just beyond the cobbled streets of Edinburgh's Old Town, the most important event of the year is taking place–the Foxtrot Oscars. Mrs Hubbard's whole senior citizenship has been building towards the moment she and her Douglas take the Over Sixties Swingers Cup. What could possibly go wrong, dearies?

The Little Valley library is shutting its doors due to a terrible combination of anonymous threats and a lack of funding. The sheriff is stumped in the investigation of who is sending the threats, so amateur sleuths, Anna and Beth, step in to help.

When a beautiful Christmas package appears on Grandmama's porch, it's much too heavy for the Christmas pudding it holds. With her family away for the holidays, Grandmama digs in to the pudding, only to find a cannon ball baked inside. Instantly, her memory flies back to a friendship she destroyed a decade before. Hoping to make amends, Grandmama travels to Surrey and joins up with her former friend's grandson to solve the murder of his grandfather - who Grandmama once loved and whose death she blamed, out of jealousy, on her friend.

A caroling donkey arrives in Clover Grove before Christmas with tidings of a new murder. Stray rescue animals are business as usual for hobby farmer Ivy and her sheepdog Keats. Misfits blend seamlessly into the menagerie, and the more the merrier. When a mouthy, grieving donkey demands room at the inn right before Christmas, however, Ivy bites off more than she can chew. He’s got a message that’s far from festive, and he won’t stop singing the blues till she figures out his secret.

It’s late December between Ground Zero and Fatal Error, a winter of discontent for Jack who’s perhaps spending too much time hanging at Julio’s. An old contact, Edward Burkes, convinces him to take on a missing-person fix. As usual, nothing is as it seems, and the missing person isn’t exactly a person. In fact, it’s like nothing anyone has ever seen. And in the middle of all this, the mysterious Madame de Medici hires him to safeguard a valuable object. Simple, right? Not even close. Yep, Jack is back and, as usual, weird trouble is on his heels.