Christmas Thriller

In this batch of sweet, short murder mysteries, three cooks don’t spoil the broth. New York Times best-selling author Joanne Fluke pens the title story, in which a box of Hannah Swensen’s gingerbread cookies is found near the corpse of her neighbor. Popular co-authors Laura Levine and Leslie Meier offer “The Dangers of Gingerbread Cookies” and “Gingerbread Cookies and Gunshots”, respectively.

Annie Murray's festive plans at the Secret Bookcase are thrown into disarray when a celebrity baker drops dead during a gingerbread-baking competition… As whispers of foul play swirl like snowflakes, Annie soon finds herself tangled in a web of secrets, small-town rivalry, and long-buried mysteries. With pub owner and new love Liam by her side and the help of her loyal bookstore colleagues, Annie sets out to solve Redwood Grove’s latest murder mystery.

When a mysterious package containing a severed hand is left at FBI agent Emma Griffin’s doorstep, Emma is suddenly pulled into one of the buried mysteries of her past. Emma is looking forward to spending the holidays with the family she’s built around herself. Bellamy, Eric, Dean, and Xavier are coming to Sherwood to celebrate the season with her and Sam, and she’s looking forward to spending some time relaxing and sharing traditions, old and new.

Christmas is not an easy time to sell a house, but in Boston tycoon John Bragdon, Cabot Cove Realtor Eve Simpson has found a buyer for the old Jarvis homestead. Unfortunately, Eve gets a lump of coal in her stocking in the form of Kenny Jarvis, who has been missing for years and presumed dead but has now come back to stop his sister from selling their childhood home. Eve presses on, organizing a welcome dinner for Bragdon and his wife, Marlene, to meet the leading citizens of the town, including Jessica Fletcher.

With a healthy disregard for rules, he attracts trouble like a magnet. He has a newly assigned apprentice - the unfortunate Detective Constable Barnard - the Chief Constable’s nephew. Fresh to the provinces, just up from London in an embarrassingly flash suit, he’s ripe for Frost’s satire.

The festive season is in full swing - parties, champagne and Christmas crackers abound. You're having a breather at the hotel bar when a stunning young woman catches your eye. Could she really be interested in you? She flutters her eyelashes and takes your hand. Her Christmas party dress glitters with sequins. What you don't know is that your life is now in her hands - as she leads you up to her room there's only one thing that will determine whether you live or die. Are you a good person? Are you really?

Trees decorated, stockings full of presents, and another case to crack! FREE on Kindle Unlimited! The Rowling family is gearing up for another Merry Christmas, and Mandy has her hands full with holiday prep, but how can she get into the spirit of the season when the victim in her latest case isn’t a ghost? Twenty years ago, during a Christmas Eve blackout, Kevin Holt, the husband of a rich heiress, lost his memory in a fall down the stairs of their mansion. Now he’s discovered evidence that someone might have been trying to kill him, and all he wants for Christmas is to find out who. ...

It’s December in Cornwall, and Mousehole harbour is illuminated with its famous Christmas lights. Ally Bright is among the crowd listening to the carol singers—and then to the piercing screams that rip through the darkness. A body has been found, brutally murdered and dumped in a fisherman’s boat.

Vanessa March's husband, Lewis, is meant to be on a business trip in Stockholm - so why does he briefly appear in newsreel footage of a fire at a circus in Vienna, with his arm around another woman? Vanessa flies to Austria to find her husband, inadvertently becoming involved in a mystery that spans three countries...and the famous dancing stallions of the Spanish Riding School. The moonlight flooded the meadow, blanching all colours to its own ghostly silver. The pines were very black.

Axel’s parents are visiting for the holiday and Pepper wants things to go smoothly. But when his mom insults the town Scrooge things turn rocky fast. Worse, when the town Scrooge is murdered, fingers quickly point to Axel’s mom.

To begin with Roderick Pang was dead. Dead as a door-nail. Bill Jedburgh meets three Ghosts and has to decide what the future might hold for him. His sniper rifles range from the Lee Enfield Enforcer with the Parker-Hale sight, across the Heckler & Koch PSG1 with the Brugget & Thomet optics and finally he gets to use the Barrett M82 with a Leupold sight. You might very well say: Bah, humbug!

A holiday party takes an unexpected turn after an anonymous gift surfaces during the white elephant exchange. The contents from the mysterious package trigger events that catapult Thom Bailey into an exciting thrill packed adventure that unlocks incredible secrets linked to his past.

Princess Jayne Frost and Prince Consort Sinclair Crowe have been called back to Nocturne Falls for Christmas so that Jayne can help out at the short-staffed Santa’s Workshop. Being back means seeing some old friends, but also finding new trouble that Jayne just can’t stop thinking about. Are the random break-ins really someone trying to ruin Christmas? Because as Santa Claus’s niece, that feels personal to her.

It's the beginning of December in Rudolph, New York, America's Christmas Town, and business is brisk at Mrs. Claus's Treasures, a gift and decor shop owned by Merry Wilkinson. The local amateur dramatic society is intensely preparing a special musical production of A Christmas Carol. But it's not a happy set, as rivalries between cast and crew threaten the production.

“Highly amusing, risqué and calamitous is a description of it, just like Lillian’s life.” If you could go back and do life differently, would you? He sat on the curb, bloody. All but his daughter murdered, and she was missing. I should have just called 911 and waited in my car. I didn’t. I felt pulled to prove the man’s innocence as he became the number one suspect. And then, I became the number one target. Can I do life differently? Good lord, I’ll still struggling to answer this question. “Although Lillian's future and happiness would benefit greatly from her NOT getting ...

Mariah Ellison, Charlotte Pitt's grandmother, accepts her longtime friend Winnie's gracious invitation to spend Christmas with her and her husband, Barton, in their picturesque village. But upon arrival, Mariah discovers that Winnie has vanished without a trace, and Barton rudely rescinds the invitation. Once Mariah finds another acquaintance to stay with during the holiday season, she begins investigating Winnie's disappearance.

Nine friends meet at Casa D’Amico, a log cabin by Pine Lake, Colorado, for their annual Christmas vacation. One of them is there for a very different reason. Murder and mistletoe mingle in the secluded White River National Park, but Alfie Burstow, a seasoned San Francisco homicide detective, has no time for holiday cheer. His last case before Christmas vacation just happens to be the murder of his former lover, Paige Lo Pinto. With his partner taking the lead on the investigation, Alfie heads off to Colorado for some much-needed R&R, unaware that a sinister figure dressed as an elf is hot...

Stan Hope never cared much for his son-in-law—Justyn Patko. His black clothes and body piercings were bad enough, but the ridiculous notion of dragging Rebecca off to Broadway with a new baby on the way pushes Stan over the edge. How much can a father take? After losing his cool at a holiday party, Stan gets a visit from three unexpected spirits. Can they help to change his close-minded ways?

THIS IS A CHRISTMAS SHORT STORY It’s 2019 and Bill Jedburgh, no longer the Reliable Man but still a gun for hire, has one last assignment to complete before he can eat his Christmas dinner. As he traverses the Swiss alps in search of his quarry, a carol forces him to remember the ghosts of past kills. But will a partridge in a pear tree elude him?

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?