Holiday Thriller

The Darkness of New Orleans dozed fitfully during the war years, waiting for its chance to play with its toys again. It was a Darkness as carefully hidden as the gates to the small courtyards that lurk between buildings in the French Quarter. In the Le Prete Mansion, a movie is just now wrapping up, having spawned madness in trying to film a seductive tale of death and mystery. Disenfranchised spirits have been sent to the hell of their birth. One lost spirit has found a new home in the body of a French Quarter policewoman.

Ainsley decides to set aside her search for answers to her past and enjoy her first Gooseberry Christmas by volunteering along with the rest of the gang for the Christmas festival on the boardwalk. Normally Ainsley didn’t bother much with Christmas and all its trappings, but this year she is excited to join in as most of the locals are prone to do. Of course it does put a bit of a damper on the festivities when a body is found in the tree lot where the gang had offered to help out.

Christmas is on trial, and time is running out. Attorney Thad Raker represents an eccentric client living in a house with a Christmas secret. When the county goes to court to take the client’s property, Raker must battle conspiring adversaries, a cantankerous judge, and his own personal feelings and doubts. If he loses the case, Christmas won’t come for hundreds of thousands of children. Can Raker save Christmas and, in the process, save himself?

Die Ehe von Andreas und Nicola Kantor ist in Routine erstarrt. Da bietet ihnen überraschend ein Freund an, über die Feiertage in sein Ferienhaus in Miramas-le-Vieux zu ziehen. Weihnachten in der Provence, nur sie beide... Tatsächlich reisen sie in einen malerischen, halb vergessenen mittelalterlichen Ort: Das Haus ist romantisch, die wenigen Nachbarn sind freundlich. Doch bereits in der ersten Nacht fällt Schnee in einer Landschaft, in der fast nie Schnee fällt. Langsam, aber unerbittlich wird Miramas-le-Vieux von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten.

Maggie Gerber and those discount divas the Good Buy Girls are gearing up for their first big holiday thrift-shop sale. But one of the Girls - Joanne Claramotta, pregnant with her first child - is acting less than festive. It could be hormones. Or it could be Diane Jenkins, the young knockout her husband Michael hired as his new deli assistant. Calming Joanne’s nerves proves impossible when Maggie finds Michael unconscious on his deli floor - with Diane next to him, strangled to death with her apron strings.

The Sinterklaas has tasked Christmas Special Investigator Steingrim Og with finding a missing spell, but he must first contend with a new assistant and aid an old friend. When mysterious explosions kill elves regardless of race and word of treason among the elves is revealed, Steingrim does not know whom to trust. His investigations uncover plans for an invasion by one of the village’s deadliest nemesis: Jack Frost.

House flippers Jack and Juniper agree to lend and help prep their latest purchase - the Doctor's House, an old Victorian mansion - to act as the eerie setting for the town's Halloween bash. They're expecting to find missing floor boards and pesky bats, not the ghostly specter of the murdered doctor's wife. But when the head of the council is found stuffed in a trunk in the attic, it appears history is repeating.

It's Christmas time at the Paranormal Institute for Witches. Excited to go home for the holidays and be reunited with their families, Mercy, Jax, Holly, Sweets, and Alba say their goodbyes. However, when an unpredicted snowstorm ravages Aspen Falls, the girls must scramble to figure out their next move. Tempers flare as blame is placed and feelings are hurt. By the looks of it, Christmas will surely be ruined. But when a surprise visitor arrives, the girls are forced to find out what friendship really means and decide whether or not it's worth saving.

On a bleak Christmas morning, Sewa Tribal Police Officer Heather English patrols a desolate canyon on the Arizona reservation. Back in Kansas, her father, the sheriff of Benteen County, is lonely enough with no family around to go in to work at his office. On the way, Sheriff English calms a wild incident in a church parking lot. Then he hears of a death threat. The crèche, at the center of the town’s largest holiday yard display, has been desecrated, and its owner plans to kill the neighbors he suspects are responsible.

In Hummelstich scheint die Welt noch in Ordnung zu sein: Die Dächer der niedlichen Fachwerkhäuser funkeln und glitzern unter strahlend blauem Himmel und die Bewohner gehen emsig ihrem Tagewerk nach. Aber der schöne Schein trügt - denn hinter der Bilderbuchfassade tun sich mörderische Abgründe auf... Aber zum Glück ist die energische Hobbydetektivin Bea von Maarstein vor Ort! Zusammen mit ihrem persönlichkeitsgestörten Papagei Dr. Jekyll und dem Dorfpolizisten Sven Grüneis löst sie jeden noch so verzwickten Fall.

The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, but even the light can't keep away all that goes bump in the night. From rituals and witches to summer slasher and sunny horror, this anthology has it all.

Georgia Winston is now dating Detective Cal Perkins, planning a Christmas program, and navigating her relationship with her twin stepbrothers. Just another day. But then her church’s youth pastor dies of poisoning, and she’s the only one who hears his final word, “Anchor.” After the youth pastor’s girlfriend disappears, Georgia starts asking questions. Too many. When she’s almost run off the road, she goes on the offensive - with her stepbrothers’ help - and starts putting the pieces of the murder together.

In book 6 in the series, It’s summertime in Holiday Bay, and between the outdoor dining option provided by the new rooftop bar and eatery, and the summer concert series held on the roof every Thursday night, the Bistro is busier than they’ve ever been. Beck has an interesting case involving a woman whose mother disappeared when she was a child, Amy is entered into the annual clam chowder cookoff, Dawson has an important decision to make, Nikki has a new guy in her life, and Kennedy is struggling with empty nest syndrome while Addy is visiting her brother in Boston.

Shelby Morris came to Holiday Bay after receiving a huge inheritance from a woman she'd never met which she'd been destined to share with two half-sisters she'd never knew existed. It took some time for the three very different siblings to settle the estate in a manner that was agreeable to all of them, but in the end, it was decided that Shelby would stay and take care of things.

Christmas in a castle shouldn't involve booby traps and impending death. Can you build a catapult from rakes and flowerpots? When Beryl finds her aunt dead, she flees before the cops blame her. Unfortunately, the killers are after her. Rural Michigan isn’t Gramercy Park, but it does have a great castle to hide out in! “Gibbs” arrives home from the hospital (broken leg and all) to find someone living on his third floor, hiding out from “goons,” and making boobytraps to fend off an attack! Beryl is determined to beat the goons at their own game. Gibbs just wants to keep her alive.

A Christmas house party becomes a covert operation to trap a French spy. Can the Honorable John Bonnington protect his wife from their guest’s murderous intentions? Can Abbie Bonnington protect her husband from his ex-mistress’ intentions to seduce him into revealing Crown secrets? Can Abbie and Jack continue the charade of hosting the perfect holiday party as danger, treachery, and treason swirl in the ballroom?

A friend is missing and presumed dead, and detective Jade Hollis is determined to track down the killer. To do that she must team up with private investigator Bryce Kingsley - who doesn't know he is the father of her child. But she'll have to put personal secrets aside because the killer will strike again to keep the truth from being exposed.

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.

Death has come twice to Ravenbank, a remote community in England’s Lake District, each time on Halloween. Just before the First World War, a young woman’s corpse was found, with a makeshift shroud frozen to her battered face. Her ghost - the Faceless Woman - is said to walk through Ravenbank on Halloween. Five years ago, another woman, Shenagh Moss, was murdered, and again her face was covered to hide her injuries.

An old English Yule has never been merrier or more mysterious. A New Year's celebration has never looked more joyous but been so potentially deadly. Fearing the 12 Days of Christmas of 1564 may be the last for her ailing, elderly friend, Lady Kat Ashley, Queen Elizabeth decrees a nostalgic, old-fashioned holiday. Delicious dishes for the table, holly and ivy, caroling, wassailing, mumming, and a Lord of Misrule to oversee it all are in the recipe for the revels. But one of the queen's kitchen staff is found as dead as the ornate peacock he was preparing for the feast.