Holiday Mystery

Krissy Hancock is staying in her adopted hometown of Pine Hills, Ohio, for Christmas this year - and she even has a whole week off from her combination bookstore-cafe. Unfortunately, she's been roped into filling in for a sick elf in the local holiday musical extravaganza. With a demanding director, backstage gossip, and two men in fierce competition for the starring role, it isn't all sweetness and Christmas lights. Then a murder puts a stop to the production, and Krissy is faced with a pageant of suspects.

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.

In book 1 of this series, Piper manages to land a job planning an exclusive black-tie event to be held at a local estate, only to find a body in the bedroom just hours before the first honored guests are due to arrive.

Hank is in real trouble this time. Loper and Sally May's relatives are coming for Christmas dinner, and Sally May has been working to get the entire ranch in order - including preparing for the Christmas feast. Unfortunately, when she discovers that the turkey she bought has met a terrible end, she pins the blame on Hank! Is he the guilty party, or have more sinister forces been at work to frame him for the crime?

Aurora Hart hates everything Christmas, but how could she turn down the opportunity to serve one year of probation in Holiday Haven versus a full sentence for her crimes? Saddled with a talking squirrel roommate, Aurora is doing her best to keep a low profile as she bides her time. Everything is going fine...until Santa's sleigh gets stolen.

During a break from his usual village beat, young Police Constable Nick finds himself involved with holidaymakers and their problems. As well as the normal seaside duties, how does he cope with a man who’s lost his false teeth in the sea and another who wants to give away thousands of pounds when drunk? Then there’s the stray Labrador that thinks he’s a police dog and accompanies police officers on night patrols, and the anxious fisherman who daren’t tell his wife that he owns a racehorse.

Tinker’s Cove, Maine, has a long history of Thanksgiving festivities, from visits with TomTom Turkey to the annual Warriors high school football game and Lucy Stone’s impressive pumpkin pie. But this year, someone has added murder to the menu, and Lucy intends to discover who left Metinnicut Indian activist Curt Nolan dead - with an ancient war club next to his head. The list of suspects isn’t exactly brief. Nolan had a habit of disagreeing with just about everybody he met.

Everyone knows a Juniper Holiday Halloween party is to die for. To get an invite is the most talked about topic in Crescent Cove. To experience the Holiday mansion in all its (supposedly) haunted glory is the stuff of legend. Of course, no one has actually seen a ghost in residence—but how could they when they’re having the time of their life?

Mae West's first Christmas as a married woman at Happy Trails Campground should've been merry and bright. But when a Winter Festival turns deadly and one of their own lands on the suspect list, Mae and the Laundry Club ladies know there's more to unwrap than just presents.

Andy Carpenter and his golden retriever, Tara, are finding that all is not calm or bright in Silent Bite, the latest Christmas mystery in this heartwarming series from bestselling author David Rosenfelt. Lawyer Andy Carpenter can finally take a breath; he’s back on dry land after a family...

Sergeant Hamish Macbeth returns to protect his sleepy Scottish village of Lochdubh in the latest mystery in M.C. Beaton’s beloved, New York Times bestselling series. It is February and the Scottish Highlands village of Lochdubh is dealing with heavy snow and freezing temperatures. Sergeant...

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?

Holiday time in the Valley, and in the holiday spirit - despite the dismal shape of the finances at the Little Detective Agency - Bernie refers a potential client to Victor Klovsky, a fellow private eye. It’s also true that the case - promising lots of online research but little action - doesn’t appeal to Bernie, while it seems perfect for Victor, who is not cut out for rough stuff. But Victor disappears in a rough-stuff way, and when he doesn’t show up at his mom’s to light the Hanukkah candles, she hires Chet and Bernie to find him.

Chet the dog, "the most lovable narrator in all of crime fiction" (Boston Globe), and his human partner Bernie Little find themselves high in the mountains this holiday season to help Dame Ariadne Carlisle, a renowned author of bestselling Christmas mysteries, find Rudy, her lead reindeer and good luck charm, who has gone missing. At Kringle Ranch, Dame Ariadne's expansive mountain spread, Chet discovers that he is not fond of reindeer. But the case turns out to be about much more than reindeer after Dame Ariadne's personal assistant takes a long fall into Devil's Purse, a deep mountain gorge.

For residents of Salem, Massachusetts, the day after Halloween brings empty candy wrappers, sagging pumpkins, and a community-wide identity crisis. That is, until Lee Barrett's TV production class suggests extending the spooky season with the traditional Mexican celebration Dia de Los Muertos. But when the students discover not all of Salem's dead are resting in peace, the post-October blues don't seem so bad after all....

It’s Christmas Eve at the North Pole—and Santa’s favorite red socks have disappeared! Without them, he can’t possibly deliver presents! Join Santa, Mrs. Claus, and their team of giggling elves as they search high and low across the North Pole—from the cookie kitchen to the reindeer stables, and even the magical laundry room! There are socks on antlers, socks in cookie jars, and socks with bells that jingle at the worst times… but can they find the right pair before takeoff?

England, 1927. When Lord Edgington hears of a failed attack on an eccentric viscount, it’s the perfect excuse to get out of seeing horrible relatives over Christmas. With his loyal grandson and their golden retriever along for the ride, he sets off to investigate, but on arriving at the snowbound manor house on the English coast, they find that the wrong man has been killed. It is not the rich tyrant who lies dead on the floor of the grand salon, but one of his many bickering heirs.

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?

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.

As beautiful as it may be, their friends’ country house is not where Lady Vespasia wishes to spend Christmas with her new husband, Victor Narraway. She’d have preferred a relaxing holiday at home with him - especially as Victor, former head of the London Special Branch, seems to be hiding undercover dealings with the other guests who have gathered at the spacious estate.