Holiday Mystery Thriller

The year is 1986. The increasing popularity of video-game consoles and home-video recorders render requests for traditional toys at an all-time low. With his workshop rapidly losing popularity and demand among the children of the world, Santa Claus decides to take his business in a new direction. International drug trafficking. After all, why lose money making Christmas crackers, when he can earn money making Christmas crack heads. One of the elves escapes to the big city to enlist the help of Dallas Stone, a maverick cop who only knows one way to fight crime.

In the New England town of Frog's Ledge, the Holiday Light Festival is a Christmas tradition. Killing Santa is not. To bring joy back to the season, organic pet patisserie owner Kristan "Stan" Connor will have to find another Santa before it's too late . . . To the townspeople's delight, the annual lighting of the tree is a spectacular success. Unfortunately, Santa pulled up in his sleigh, DOA. At first Stan is sure it's Seamus, her boyfriend's uncle, inside the red suit. But the victim turns out to be an employee from the town's Christmas tree farm.

The next morning, Anastasia once again heads to Ira's house before work to drop them off. When she arrives, she discovers Ira’s attacker dead in Santa’s sleigh. Ira becomes the prime suspect in the man’s murder and begs Anastasia to help clear his name.

With the festive season fast approaching, amateur sleuth Juno Browne helps organise a Christmas Fair to raise funds for Ashburton’s local animal sanctuary. The event is a success, but whilst Santa is handing out presents in the fairy-lit grotto, a murder is being committed in a dark corner of the garden. Juno discovers the body of Bob the Blacksmith, found clutching a horseshoe decorated with a sprig of elder. Suspicion falls on Bob’s longsuffering wife, Jackie, and on Don Drummond, with whom Bob violently quarrelled in the past

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.

After solving her first case, Siobhan O’Brien faces her biggest challenge yet—Thanksgiving! With her lawyer boyfriend Craig in tow, Siobhan travels to Minneapolis to endure small talk with the extended O’Brien clan and chow down on some seriously delicious turkey and dressing. Everything’s swell until her sister-in-law Gwen tells her about her brother Sven's frequent late-night meetings with his co-workers. Since Siobhan’s next case is just a ferry ride from their house in Washington state, she asks for Siobhan’s help.

"Only in Bologna" reads the headline in the Carlino after a professor of music is apparently murdered leaving the opera. But what looks like an open-and-shut case begins to fall apart when English detective Daniel Leicester is tasked with getting the accused man off, and a trail that begins among Bologna's close-knit classical music community leads him to suspect there may be a serial killer at large in the oldest university in the world. And as Bologna trembles with aftershocks following a recent earthquake, the city begins to give up her secrets.

Peace on Earth isn’t everyone’s cup of tea in Charlotte MacLeod’s “A Cozy for Christmas”. Peter Lovesey’s “The Haunted Crescent” delivers a holiday ghost story with a twist. A training session for department-store Santas turns up Saint Nicks who are anything but angels in Isaac Asimov’s “Ho, Ho, Ho”. Marcia Muller’s “Silent Night” finds a tough private investigator searching San Francisco’s Tenderloin district - and discovering something unexpected.

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.

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.

Tragedy befalls the town of Misty Point when local veterinarian, Dr. Arnie Stokes, is shot at the Hand in Paws Animal Clinic. The investigation leads the Misty Point Police Department directly to Megan Stanford, who has now inherited ownership of the grant that has continued to keep the clinic running. When thefts of drugs and medical supplies are uncovered, the attacks appear to be coordinated with other animal shelters. As Christmas approaches, Megan, Nick, and her friends look to keep the spirit of the holiday alive by hosting a fundraiser for the misplaced animals.

Christmas lights twinkle throughout the cozy coastal town of Rocky Point, New Hampshire, and Prescott's Antiques auction venue has been transformed into a winter wonderland for Josie Prescott's annual holiday party. Josie is especially excited this year - Ian Bennington, a recently discovered distant relative, will be joining the fun. Both Ian and Josie are, it seems, descended from Arabella Churchill, a 17th-century royal mistress. The party is a success and Ian is a hit. It gives Josie an unexpected thrill to have family - and unexpected dread when he vanishes.

Quilt appraiser Keely Fairchild is thrilled that the Danger Cove Quilt Guild has teamed up with the Historical Museum to make miniature quilts to decorate the museum's Christmas tree. To join in the holiday spirit, she offers free appraisals of holiday quilts during the ornament-making workshop.

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?

Gemma Rose, ihres Zeichens Tearoom-Besitzerin und unfreiwillige Detektivin, freut sich auf ein Fest voller köstlicher weihnachtlicher Leckereien, auf Zeit mit Freunden und Familie und mit etwas Glück sogar auf „weiße Weihnachten“, die in Oxford nur alle Jubeljahre einmal vorkommen. Doch dann schneit sie auf einem Landsitz ein und stolpert über einen rätselhaften Mord - mit einer Leiche in der Bibliothek, einem Haus voller Verdächtiger und einer Spur aus mysteriösen Fußabdrücken!

Scotty Parker is a former child star who once played Tiny Tim, but now he's grown up into the role of the neighborhood Scrooge. He thinks he can stage a comeback with the screenplay he's working on, and Jaine's been reluctantly helping him edit it. So when Scotty is bludgeoned with a frozen chocolate yule log and the police start making a list of suspects and checking it twice, Jaine's name is unfortunately included.

One wet winter night, two women meet on a bridge. One is Tess Taylor, a personal trainer on the way to meet her boyfriend for date night. The other is Kate King, a celebrity married to a handsome billionaire who just happens to make her cry. In the cold, dark evening, there is nothing to link them together but the bridge they shiver on. Little do they know they'll each hold the key to the other's future marriage....

USA Today best-selling author William W. Johnstone built a reputation for crafting unmatched stories of true Western courage - a tradition J. A. Johnstone now continues. In A Rocky Mountain Christmas, Matt Jensen’s scenic trip on the Denver railway is derailed when an avalanche strikes the train. Far from an accident, its cause is a reckless band of outlaws out to free their leader. Surrounded and outgunned in a driving snowstorm, Matt must lead to safety a ragtag group of survivors that includes a senator’s sick daughter and a beautiful woman with a dark past.

“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?

The Ruins follows two American couples enjoying a pleasant, lazy beach holiday together in Mexico. On an impulse, they go off with newfound friends in search of one of their group: the young German who, in pursuit of a girl, has headed for the remote Mayan ruins, site of a fabled archeological dig.