Christmas Thriller

As I walk into the pine-scented air of my seaside childhood home, gripping my husband Neil’s hand tight, I have a brief moment of hope. Maybe this Christmas will be different — for once my family might get on fueled by mulled wine and festive cheer. But the sound of happy carols are replaced by my older sister Christy’s over-loud laugh and slurred words. Rebecca, my younger sister, stalks out of the room as soon as I enter, as though I’m the Grinch here to steal Christmas. And their husbands, brash and arrogant, slap Neil’s back in a way that promises torment rather than welcome.

December 1921: Being single and a new Chief, Inspector Rutledge of Scotland Yard gets the short straw at Christmastime and is called upon by Chief Superintendent Markum to go to the Kentish home of a lord recovering from an attempt on his life. In bed with a concussion, the man is convinced someone is trying to kill him after he claims he was struck by the hoof of a running horse whose rider never stopped to check on him.

Romee's winter break was planned out months ahead. A week at a cabin in the woods sounded romantic, and maybe it was just what her boyfriend of two years needed to pop the question. Instead, he proposed they break up, a week before they were destined to wake up Christmas morning, happier than ever. Heartbroken but undaunted, Romee embarks on a solitary journey to the remote cabin, yearning for peace and closure in the tranquil snowscape. Six nights of isolation, wine, and TV shows seemed like the perfect remedy for a breakup.

Stocking stuffers like handknit scarves make the coziest of Christmas gifts—unless they're used as accessories for murder! When grinchy thefts steal the good cheer at a local nursing home, Siobhan O'Sullivan manages to identify one missing item before the tractor parade—a hideous shamrock scarf wrapped around a very dead body. The festivities go cold at Pans 'N' Pancakes the instant a diner dies while knitting a brilliant green scarf. Suspects pile up when frosty-tempered Carys Walnutt is found strangled by a handmade scarf auctioned at Arborville's tree-lighting ceremony.

Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects more than 50 of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories - many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.

"Reader Vacker does a remarkable job voicing the main characters and keeping the tension high....Mystery and true crime fans will be drawn in and ultimately satisfied by this complex, tense tale read expertly by a talented narrator." - Booklist "[Karissa] Vacker switches easily between the...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER In “Grisham’s most addictive courtroom thriller” (The Seattle Times), justice is fighting for its life—and the jury is caught in the crossfire of greed and corruption. They are at the center of a multimillion-dollar legal hurricane: twelve men and women...

In this #1 New York Times bestseller, the Women's Murder Club gets ready for a quiet Christmas—until a mysterious killer decides to terrorize the city. As the holidays approach, Detective Lindsay Boxer and her friends in the Women's Murder Club have much to celebrate. Crime is down. The...

December 1930. After a year of bloodshed and scandal, the police officers of Craynebrook are hoping for a quiet Christmas. But when the bodies of an elderly couple are discovered in their home on Christmas morning, they realise there will be no peace this holiday season.

Siobhán O'Sullivan's hopes for a quiet Irish Christmas are dashed when the local Santa turns up dead in a carnival dunk tank of hot cocoa. Now instead of hunting down holiday gifts, she's pursuing a heartless killer. Seems the dead Santa was no angel either, stealing neighborhood dogs to guide his sleigh. But was it his holiday antics - or worse - that led to his death by chocolate?

Temple House near Bath is built upon an old Roman Temple, the house bequeathed many centuries before to a secret order of old aristocracy. The 'Saints' are not true saints, they are remnants; the last of their line, they have wealth, but no heirs.

It's almost Christmas, and Gwinny Tuffel's thoughts are on what she'll buy for DI Birch and whether she can adopt another furry friend. But sorting through her late father's papers leads her into his mysterious past, pointing to an enigmatic liaison with someone now living in a Somerset commune. Gwinny and DI Birch find themselves unexpectedly snowed in with a group of retired spies, along with an energetic Cocker Spaniel, and embroiled in a murder case. Will they uncover the culprit and escape in time for Christmas?

When a mysterious package containing a severed hand is left at FBI agent Emma Griffin’s doorstep, Emma is suddenly pulled into one of the buried mysteries of her past. Emma is looking forward to spending the holidays with the family she’s built around herself. Bellamy, Eric, Dean, and Xavier are coming to Sherwood to celebrate the season with her and Sam, and she’s looking forward to spending some time relaxing and sharing traditions, old and new.

Christmas in Birmingham means the Frankfurt Christmas Market. Loved and hated by brummies in equal measure, it certainly makes life interesting for West Midlands Police. But when the body of a homeless man is found behind a market stall early one Sunday morning, it looks like Christmas might be cancelled for DI Zoe Finch and her team. And when they discover that the victim has a history that makes his death politically sensitive, things get even more complicated.

It's Christmas 1909, and for once Lady Hardcastle - respectable gentlewoman, amateur spy - and her lady's maid, Florence Armstrong, are setting sleuthing aside. They are invited to the festivities up at The Grange, as guests of Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud. But barely have corks been popped and parlour games played when a mysterious crime comes to light.

Instant New York Times Bestseller! This Christmas, it’s all about getting what you really want in this dark billionaire stalker romance sequel to He Sees You When You’re Sleeping. Stalking in a winter wonderland... Jewelry designer Sloane dreams of launching her own custom line—but she...

From the best-selling author of Our Little Secret comes a new psychological thriller. Close your eyes...and count to ten. One missing object. Two missing people. Twenty-four years of missing memory. Five days to find them all...

The countdown to Christmas has never been scarier than in this internationally bestselling holiday horror novel from Per Jacobsen. Hoping to bring his family closer together, Adam Gray arranges a vacation in a remote cabin on a snowy mountain. Things take a dark turn, however, when someone...

England, 1928. When a much unloved miser dies in the village of Kilston Down, no one suspects foul play–except for famed sleuth Lord Edgington, who may just be looking for a way to avoid his awful in-laws over Christmas. But after several unconnected villagers mysteriously die in their beds, the great detective and his young assistant must track down the culprit before the bells ring for Christmas Day and the killer strikes again.

“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?