Christmas Mystery Thriller

Christmas, the happiest time of year. Plum puddings, candy canes, carols by the fireside. But outside, the mist lies deep and still. Frost gnaws at your fingertips. Shadowy forms lurk in the evergreens. It’s the season for ghost stories.

This Yuletide season, there's no time for Angie Curtis and Patrick West to linger under the mistletoe. Patrick's being needled by his mother - movie star Skye West - to set the stage for a perfect white Christmas as she brings her costar, screenwriters, and director home for the holidays. With his mother's long list of wishes, Patrick's becoming unraveled. To help, the Mainely Needlepointers offer to decorate Skye's Victorian mansion and create needlepoint pillows as gifts for the guests.

Stephen Pengelly, owner of Barton Manor, is detested by the local community. When he is found murdered, there are few tears - but many suspects. Soon, the police have their work cut out identifying a murder weapon like no other, capable of inflicting terrible injuries. When Adam Bailey is asked to help, he and Eve must discover who has most to gain - and who is prepared to kill, and kill again, to achieve their objective.

It’s Christmas, CJ Turley’s favorite holiday, only something hovers over the festivities. A cat’s collar disappears, and it seems as if Caper, CJ’s darling pup, might be the culprit. It’s easier to believe than suspecting the owners of the cat from stealing from themselves. Hilarity and mayhem follow CJ and her friends as they try to solve the theft. All CJ really wants is to have a nice holiday with a Christmas party no one will forget. Full of twists, turns, and laughs, this Christmas novella is sure to please cozy mystery fans.

Camille's been unwillingly drafted to help prevent a Christmas catastrophe in snowy Hidden Haven. Magic from the annual Spirit of Christmas Ball keeps the town hidden from humans for the rest of the year, but the magic from the ball can't be captured without the town's holiday cheer vessel: a wand that adorns the town's tree as its crowning star. Camille arrives dressed in a red ball gown, receives a pair of glass slippers that magically don't pinch, and is assigned a canine companion to assist in her mission: find Hidden Haven's pilfered holiday cheer wand.

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.

Kris Kringle had a hell of a Christmas last year. This year isn't shaping up to be any better. The Workshop might have provided the enemy with a piece of jewelry she now wears around her neck. What is the purpose?

What do bulldog puppies and garden gnomes have to do with a dead Santa Claus? Once again intrepid pet-sitter, Polly Parrett, finds herself in the thick of a murder investigation. This time it comes too close to home when the killer strikes during the annual Christmas Open House for Welcome Home, the shelter Polly and her mom run for homeless military veterans and their pets. The murder could jeopardize everything they've worked for, so Polly sets out to catch the killer and put the jolly back in the holiday.

As Naples prepares for its holiday celebrations, behind the facade of order and happiness imposed by the fascist regime lurks terrible poverty and blinding desperation. In a luxurious apartment on the Mergellina beach, the bodies of a fascist militia officer and his wife have been found. The woman's throat has been cut while the man has been stabbed over 60 times. Seemingly, the hands of two separate killers have been at work.

Rediscover your inner child! Rediscover your inner child in this magical Christmas mystery as you follow the lonely Emma Harper through the enchanting town of Pottsville during the height of Christmas merriment. When Emma's mysterious new friend, Penelope, convinces her to break into the old cookie factory, her life is instantly filled with adventure and purpose. Emma soon becomes captive to Penelope’s spunky personality, but when strange, enchanting things begin to happen around Penelope, Emma suddenly begins to question the reality of her new friend.

Miles O'Malley wants out of Christmas in the city. He rents a primitive cabin in the north woods of New York State, looking for peace quiet away from the incessant bell-ringing and endless ghastly songs. He's not expecting to stumble on a heinous crime, but when he does, his special forces training takes over. He's not expecting to find the love of his life, either, and he's much less efficient at dealing with that. Not a cozy mystery!

It’s December in Cornwall, and Mousehole harbour is illuminated with its famous Christmas lights. Ally Bright is among the crowd listening to the carol singers—and then to the piercing screams that rip through the darkness. A body has been found, brutally murdered and dumped in a fisherman’s boat.

After more than a decade away, Mira James isn’t keen on returning to her Minnesota hometown for the holidays. Her childhood memories aren’t particularly jolly. Even less festive is the news of a serial killer on the loose. With only ten shopping days till Christmas, the Candy Cane Killer has been very busy slashing through the snow. Eager to earn her official PI stripes, Mira is anxious to track him down. But when the latest victim is a woman from her high school graduating class, the investigation hits a little too close to home.

As the holiday season lights up Seattle's famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece's beloved Spice Shop is brimming with cinnamon, nutmeg, and shoppers eager to stuff their stockings. Add to the mix a tasty staff competition—a peppermint bark-off—along with Victorian costumes for this year's Dickensian Christmas theme, and Pepper almost forgets to be nervous about meeting her fisherman boyfriend's brother for the first time. But when a young woman working in her friend Vinny's wine shop is brutally assaulted, costumed revelers and holiday cheer are the last things on Pepper's mind.

Christmas is Samara Pinder’s favorite holiday, and this Christmas, for the first time in a long time, her work and love life are in a great place. Full of joy and bearing gifts, she’s planning to spend the holiday with her boyfriend and his family. But some plans are made to be broken. And somebody is about to be stabbed!

Christmas should be the happiest time, but at Pennington’s dramas are seething beneath the surface. For Cornelia Culford, a divorce hearing looms where she could lose custody of her sons to her unfaithful husband. For Stephen Gower, being head of security at Pennington's is the perfect refuge from a tragic past at Scotland Yard. But soon Joseph Carter and Elizabeth Pennington beg him to help solve the murder of Joseph's first wife, now that the killer has struck again.

What could go wrong when baker Rosie Hart heads to a snowy Colorado mountain lodge for a week of elaborate pre-wedding festivities at her friend’s wedding? The better question would be...what could go right? Rosie’s fears for the nervous bride are confirmed when one of the wedding guests turns up dead. All evidence points to the groom being the intended victim, but with the guests dressed in Christmas-themed attire and a dead Santa on their hands, Rosie’s not so sure. What if the killer did hit the right target all along?

“On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me the reason your husband had to die.” Anna Greenan finds the cryptic lyric shoved against her front door. Each day of Christmas brings Anna a new stanza with a new clue. Will this mysterious Christmas carol lead Anna to uncover her husband’s murderer or will these notes lead to her demise?

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…and for Heather Andrews, security manager at Timberwoods Mall, undoubtedly the busiest. But this Christmas, Heather has more to contend with than frazzled parents and disgruntled Santas. Angela Steinhart, a young woman who designed the mall’s spectacular holiday displays, has had a premonition that tragedy will strike on Christmas Eve. And Angela’s visions have a habit of coming true. Heather would love to dismiss the warning as holiday stress.

"It's the most wonderful time of the year," the old song tells us. But that doesn't mean the people celebrating it are always so nice. Criminals get the Christmas spirit, too! In this collection of hilarious short stories, you'll see what the thieves, killers, psychos and scumbags are up to come the holidays...and it's not caroling door to door. Well, not unless they're casing the neighborhood for a break-in, as a rag-tag gang does in the title story.