Christmas Thriller

Arriving home early after spending Christmas in jolly old England, amateur sleuth Adrien English discovers alarming developments at Cloak and Dagger Books - and an old acquaintance seeking help in finding a missing boyfriend. Fortunately, Adrien just happens to know a really good private eye.

Professor Claire Lane interrupted by a sudden telephone call to help in a murder investigation leaves the tranquility of Edinburgh for the country lanes of Oxford. Lord of the Realm, Inspector Ralph McGinnis is puzzled. Unlike his colleague Miss Lane is adamant this is a copycat murder. Last seen in the seventeenth century by an overzealous Venetian statesman. A well-known Australian financier is dead. Propped up in the Nativity scene outside the church. The vicar is acting strangely, could he have been persuaded to preach peace and good will during this festive season, or will Claire work ...

As bookstore owner Addie Greyborne shares the loving lesson of The Gift of the Magi, the spirit of the season falls prey to a thief and a killer....

Ledbury, December 1892. Detective Inspector Ravenscroft looks forward to spending a quiet Christmas with his family. Then he receives news that an old friend stands accused of a brutal murder. Ravenscroft and Detective Sergeant Crabb travel to the old Worcestershire market town of Bromsgrove to investigate. But events soon take a deadly dramatic turn. As the bad weather closes in on the two detectives, Ravenscroft begins to wonder whether they will make it home for Christmas.

After five years of running the Holiday Haven Inn, Carolyn Highcrest thinks she can handle anything. She and her best friend Mercy are determined to make their festive weekend celebrations the best they can possibly be, despite being surrounded by scheming rivals, melodramatic theatre group members and overenthusiastic carollers.

Tea maven Theodosia Browning and her tea sommelier, Drayton Conneley, are catering a Victorian Christmas party at a swanky mansion in downtown Charleston. Drucilla Heyward, the hostess, is one of the wealthiest women in town. As the champagne flows and the tea steeps, Drucilla is so pleased with the reception by her partygoers that she reveals her secret plan to Theodosia. However, before she can make the announcement, Theodosia finds her crumpled unconscious in the hallway.

Amazon Best-selling writer Bronze Medal-winning writer--Global Book Awards Silent Night, Murderous Night The presents, kidnapping, murder, treason and hate, under her tree weren’t what Ruth Arbuthnot had wished for. For the first Christmas since her husband’s death, she is looking forward to a wonderful Christmas Season with her granddaughter and her friends, but she has a mysterious enemy who is determined to ruin her holidays. Anxiously preparing for the return of the El Paso National Guard from Afghanistan, Ruth is blindsided when she calls an audit of her husband’s pet company and...

It's a snowy Christmas at St. Stephen's Convent, where a cheerful party awaits an old friend and former confessor, Father Hudson McCormick. But he never reaches his destination. Christine Bennett, a former St. Stephen's nun, arrives to investigate the disappearance. But the nuns are mum until an old scandal involving the priest and a St. Stephen's novice rears its ugly head. Has Father McCormick, unable to face the scene of his sins, gone underground?

Henry Rathbone is called by an old friend whose son has gone missing 10 days before the Christmas holiday. Now in his early twenties, Lucien has known trouble for some time and has often fallen victim to the vices of drugs, alcohol and women. His father now fears the worst. Their old friend and reformed brothel-owner, Squeaky Robinson, volunteers to help. Henry agrees and, joined by Crow, a young doctor at the clinic, the pair trawls the pubs, brothels, and opium dens of the West End in search of clues.

When Robert Catesby, the charismatic son of a Catholic gentleman, marries heiress Catherine Leigh and inherits the rich Oxfordshire manor house at Aston from his grandmother, it seems that the future happiness of the couple must be assured. However, Robert’s deep involvement in plots to overthrow the Protestant queen Elizabeth I and his increasingly dangerous behavior threaten the lives of his wife and their young son.

Black eyeliner. Black lashes. Black lips. Black hair. Through it all, peers the white cake face of Darling Girl Jones, orphan. From time to time, she awakens in her academy dorm room to find an ethereal spirit haunting her bed. Never disturbing, always intriguing, such an event is a certain promise of ghoulish adventure and mortal danger. Although today is a special day at her Academy because today is Christmas Eve - and that means all-you-can-eat pancakes with real maple syrup - Darling Girl's holidays are never so easy and a ghost with a serious problem is certain to spoil her fun!

An English bobbie returning from night patrol finds a corpse in evening dress locked in the stocks on the village green. He identifies the body immediately. Andrew Vereker was not a well-loved man, and narrowing down the suspects is not going to be an easy job. The Vereker family are corrupt and eccentric - and hardly cooperative. It's another case for the resourceful Superintendent Hannasyde, who sets off on the trail of a killer so cunning that even his consummate powers of detection are tested to their limits.

"They're cute. They're sweet. They're out for blood. You'll never look at your cookie jar the same way again. The GingerDead Men – Paranormal Cozy Mystery to take a bite out of you!" In the quaint town of Sweetville, local baker Martha Sugarspoon discovers an antique oven at an estate sale. Thrilled with her find, she brings it to her bakery, unaware of its sinister history. As Christmas approaches, Martha bakes a batch of gingerbread cookies in the cursed oven, inadvertently awakening an ancient evil. The cookies come to life, their innocent smiles hiding razor-sharp teeth and an ...

When former celebrity chef Jackie Norwood travels to Haymes, Oklahoma, for the annual Honey Festival, she expects a few sticky situations—but not a murder. What was supposed to be a lighthearted holiday trip to her cameraman Greg's hometown takes a dark turn when Emily, Greg's sister, finds her ex-husband dead while he was attempting to steal her beehives. With Emily quickly becoming the prime suspect, Jackie is pulled into a hive's worth of hearsay, hostility, and hidden histories. Now, Jackie must uncover the truth and catch the real killer before someone else gets stung.

The cast of Donna Andrews’ New York Times best-selling Meg Langslow mystery series is back for an unforgettable holiday story in The Twelve Jays of Christmas.

It’s Christmas in Penstowan, and local amateur dramatics group the Penstowan Players are putting on their annual pantomime. This year it’s ‘Aladdin’, and half the town have been drafted in to help, including Shirley Parker, who only has a small part in the chorus but will no doubt upstage everybody, and Tony Penhaligon, who’s treading the boards as the baddie, Abanazar. Ex-Metropolitan police officer turned caterer Jodie Parker has managed to get away with not appearing, but only if she agrees to cater the opening night party.

When a local group home for orphaned children goes up in smoke right before the holidays, Tillie Winchester volunteers her family to take in some kids - even though her arch nemesis Margaret Little is dead-set against it. Three boys - all of them with a little attitude - have no idea what to expect from the Winchester household. Tillie is determined to prove the boys are innocent while also finding them a forever home...even if she has to take on a local judge and declare all-out war.

Holed up at Hilary Bill-Tasman's manor estate for Christmas, Troy Alleyn is to paint the man's portrait and, while she's there, view the Druid Christmas pageant. Along with a pack of eccentric guests, Troy enjoys the festivities, until one of the pageant's players mysteriously disappears into the snowy night

The festive month is kicking off in style, and Pearl is rushed off her feet with her restaurant, The Whitstable Pearl. She’s also busy planning her own family Christmas and providing mulled wine for a charity church fundraiser when Christmas cards begin arriving all over town - filled with spiteful messages from an anonymous writer. Pearl’s curiosity is piqued, but having pledged not to take on a case at her detective agency before Christmas, she reluctantly agrees that Canterbury’s DCI Mike McGuire should take over, poisoned pen cards are after all a matter for the police.

It's the Christmas season, and Mr. Timothy Cratchit, not the pious child the world thought he was, has just buried his father. He's also struggling to bury his past as a cripple and shed his financial ties to his benevolent "Uncle" Ebenezer by losing himself in the thick of London's underbelly. He boards at a brothel in exchange for teaching the mistress how to read and spends his nights dredging the Thames for dead bodies and the treasures in their pockets.