Holiday Thriller

Tis the season...for ghosts. Verity Long has come to terms with the fact that she can see spirits, and talk to them, and...she's actually making cookies for one of them. But she's drawing the line at any more ghost hunting or mystery solving. Until a dear friend needs help locating a missing antique at the party of the year. Not one to leave a friend in need, Verity straps on her sparkly heels and sneaks in to see what she can find - only to uncover a startling secret that will change everything.

Everleigh Beckett’s plans for Christmas are simple: Forget her ex is getting married to another woman, keep her cat Roscoe in the lifestyle he’s accustomed to, and hunker down until all the Yuletide cheer is over. Hoping to forget the season, she agrees to work extra shifts in the Missing Persons Division so her partner can spend time with his family. What Everleigh doesn’t realize is that one of the most infamous baby-snatching cases of 1986 is about to land in her lap.

Christopher Miller is up against a group of domestic terrorists who are copying Al Qaeda's tactics: operating in cells, following a twisted fundamentalist doctrine, targeting "public amusements". A White Supremacist hate group has smuggled in a stinger missile and recruited an army marksman: a nightmare vision of a new and more talented Timothy McVeigh. Their initial plan is to bring down an airliner as it takes off from JFK airport.

When local businessman Jed Greenberg is found dead with a Chocolate lab whimpering over his body, the police start sniffing around Robbie Jordan's country restaurant for answers. Was it something in Robbie's hot cocoa that killed Jed, or was it Cocoa the dog? As the suspects pile as high as her holiday tree, Robbie attempts to get to the bottom of the sickly sweet murder.

In this 14th title in the popular series, Sammy is hoping for a fun Halloween for a change. But dressing up as zombies and cutting through the cemetery assures that the teenage sleuth and her pals are soon immersed in a satisfyingly suspenseful adventure full of secrets and surprises - not the least of which is a trick-or-treat bag with human skulls!

When a farmer is found dead in his own pumpkin patch, Abby and her tenant Tripp have to find the real killer before an innocent man is put away for life.

Jilted by her soap opera fiancé, crime writer August Saunders decides to return to her roots in rural Wiltshire. Determined to reignite her writing mojo, she rents a desk in a shared workspace in local Futtingbrook Farm. The converted barn comes with a motley array of fellow users, including a matchmaker, a TikToker with a dodgy nocturnal side-line and an ethical clothes designer—causing August to realize she doesn’t have far to look for real-life plot fuel!

As if a run-in with an old flame and a failed marriage proposal weren't enough to horrify Krissy for one night, a woman is found strangled to death in a room filled with ominous jack-o'-lanterns. All signs suggest a crime of passion - but when the hostess's jewelry disappears, malevolent intentions seem way more likely.

It's the Christmas season and veterinarian Kate Turner is not feeling very jolly. She's overworked, unappreciated, and dealing with two dissatisfied clients. Throw in a very complicated personal life and Kate's definitely got a case of the holiday blues. To make matters worse, Kate's ex-boyfriend, Jeremy, is mugged and robbed after they have a heated argument in the hospital parking lot. Then, two of her dissatisfied clients turn up dead (which really gets Kate's tinsel in a tangle). All of these events seem like coincidences, but they add up to something much more venomous.

With Halloween just around the corner, the fall colors in Georgetown are brilliant. As manager of the Color Me Read bookstore, coloring book creator Florrie Fox has arranged for psychic author Hilda Rattenhorst to read from Spooktacular Ghost Stories. But the celebrity medium arrives for the event in hysterics, insisting she just saw a bare foot sticking out of a rolled-up carpet in a nearby alley. Is someone trying to sweep murder under the rug? Florrie calls in her policeman beau, Sergeant Eric Jonquille, but the carpet corpse has disappeared without a trace.

It looks like a regular advent calendar. Until DC Becky Greene starts opening doors...and discovers a crime scene behind almost every one. The police hope it's a prank. Because if it isn't, a murderer has just surfaced - someone who's been killing for 20 years. But why now? And why has he sent it to this police station? As the country relaxes into festive cheer, Greene and DS Eddie Carmine must race against time to catch the killer. Because there are four doors left, and four murders will fill them....

Throughout the years, the ladies of the Sisterhood have delivered their own style of vigilante justice to those who most deserve it. But this Christmas, instead of finding and punishing bad guys, all Maggie Spitzer wants is to bring a little more joy to the world - and especially to a beloved teacher from her past. And as the Sisters unite to find her, they learn that no holiday treat is as fulfilling as giving to others....

Maggie Crozat is back home in bayou country during the most magical time of the year. In Pelican, Louisiana, Christmastime is a season of giant bonfires on the levee, zydeco carols, and pots of gumbo. Except, this year, the Grinch has come to stay at the family-run Crozat Plantation B&B. When he floods travel websites with vicious reviews, Maggie thinks she's identified him as rival businessman Donald Baxter. That is, until he's found stabbed to death at Maggie's workplace. And Maggie and her loved ones become top suspects.

Now that Thanksgiving's behind her, vintage cookware enthusiast Jaymie Leighton Müller is excitedly making plans for the upcoming Dickens Days festival - the town's month-long celebration leading up to Christmas. With a hot cider booth on the village green to warm the hearts and bodies of the townsfolk and a diorama featuring a scene from A Christmas Carol, things are shaping up for a festive season - until the town's local Scrooge is found murdered, a vintage pudding mould covering his cracked skull.

On the balcony of our gorgeous villa, I clink glasses with my handsome new husband, Owen Turner. As I gaze into his mysterious brown eyes, a shiver runs down my spine. I can barely believe it: true love, palm trees, turquoise sea, white sand. Everything should be perfect. Except last night, Owen and I had our first argument. My husband drank too much, and he said something that made me wonder if there's a darker side to the man I married.

Antoine Verlaque, examining magistrate for the beautiful town of Aix-en-Provence, doesn't like Christmas. The decorations appear in the shops far too early, festive tourists swarm the streets, and his beloved Cours Mirabeau is lined with chalets selling what he regards as tacky trinkets. But his wife and partner Marine Bonnet is determined to make this a Christmas they can both enjoy, beginning with the carol sing at the Cathedral Saint Sauveur, a beautiful service in a packed church. Just as the holiday cheer is in full swing, a man is poisoned, sending the community into a tailspin.

On a leafy suburban street in Dublin, beautiful, poised Stella Greene lives with her successful husband, Matt. They're the perfect couple in every way, and Stella appears to have it all. Next door, at number 72, however, lives Rea Brady. Gruff, bad tempered and rarely seen besides the twitching of her net curtains, rumour has it she's lost it all...including her marbles, if you believe the neighbourhood gossip. But appearances can be deceiving, and when Stella and Rea's worlds collide they realise they have much in common.

It's another holiday and Mayor Randall Shiffley has turned Caerphilly, Virginia, into Spooky City, USA. The residents are covering every window with cobwebs and roaming the streets in costume to entertain the tourists, and Meg's grandfather is opening a new 'Creatures of the Night' exhibit in the zoo. When a real body at the zoo and a suspicious fire at the Haunted House threaten to mar the town's creepy fun, it's up to Meg Langslow to save Halloween.

Lumi Northrop is having the best summer of her life. She's earned the respect of the entire haven after her role in recovering Rudolph and saving Jack Frost, her family's reindeer sanctuary is thriving, and she's even got herself a date to the Summer Solstice Celebration. Life is sweeter than a bowl full of jelly. Right up until the beloved frost pixies start going full gremlins-after-midnight, wrecking havoc around the sanctuary, and threatening to invade the entire magical Christmas village. Can they save the pixies before they are lost forever?

‘DCI Matilda Darke is the perfect heroine’ Elly Griffiths A short story and prequel featuring DCI Matilda Darke, star of Michael Wood’s darkly compelling crime series. Perfect for fans of Stuart MacBride, Mark Billingham and Val McDermid. It’s Christmas in Sheffield. But not everyone is...