Women Sleuths Christmas

The Christmas season is supposed to be a time of joy and celebration. But for Private Investigator Melody Clue, the holidays can quickly go awry, as she discovers in this three-story collection.

Hope Hadley normally loves Christmas. Things are different this holiday season, when her neighbor is found strangled in his backyard with a set of Christmas lights. Desperate to bring the killer to justice and to salvage what is left of the holiday season, Hope races to find the guilty party before they strike again.

Accompanied by her loyal maid and friend, Cecily Nugent, they arrive at Selfridges giggling with excitement, but unknown to them, their afternoon of delights was to take a very different turn. Yet again, Camille and Cecily are called upon to utilize their sleuthing skills to find a murderer.

In the weeks leading to Christmas, Liam McArvey, lead singer of The Fury, falls for enigmatic Bella, a waitress at his local café. However, little does he know that she is hiding a dangerous secret. After a photograph of the couple, taken outside a London recording studio, surfaces on the internet, Bella panics and prepares to move on.

When a real murder spoils the opening of an old-fashioned murder-mystery theme park, Mrs. Pomolo and her partner, Iris, go along for the ride. All this intrigue, and right before Christmas!

Trinity Ashford is happy with the lull in crime around Waterfall. Until someone breaks into her car and steals a box of donations for the local animal shelter. Even then, she doesn't want to go nosing around, despite the urging of her friend and mother. But then, someone breaks the front window of Tail Waggin' and drags away the Christmas tree. The war is on!

With the holidays approaching, amateur sleuth Geneva Pomolo takes a minor role in a community theatre’s musical stage adaptation of A Christmas Carol. A lifelong Dickens fan, Geneva is hoping for a calm respite from the rigors of crime-solving, but her stage debut proves anything but calming. The cast is stacked with powerful egos who have deluded themselves into thinking they deserve a career in Hollywood — such as Peter Vankirk, who lands the starring role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

A week before Christmas, Aggie bumps into Officer Tom Wood, her on-again, off-again boyfriend, at a new exclusive restaurant. Unfortunately, Tom is not dining alone. A beautiful young woman accompanies him. Tom introduces her as an old friend. Even though Aggie plays it off as not being jealous, her friends Betty and Roger want to learn more about this mysterious woman. Will this beautiful old friend ruin Aggie's festive mood?