It’s a classic mystery plot—the sleuth and a few others are snowed in at a resort or inn, or even on a train or at a remote private residence. The sleuth is there for a rest or vacation, not to investigate a case. But while he or she is there, someone dies. It’s murder, of course. There is no way to get out, no way to reach the authorities. They are all trapped there with a killer, and it is up to the sleuth to figure out who it is.
If you enjoy the trope, you are going to love this blog post. Here is a treasure trove (or a snow pile?) of snowbound mysteries for your reading pleasure.
Dosed to Death
Out of the frying pan and into the fire!
Kenzie Kirsch needs a vacation from the dead bodies in the Medical Examiner’s Office, so she arranges for a Thanksgiving resort vacation.
Who knew she would be dealing with more deaths there than if she had stayed at home? At first, she and partner Zachary Goldman assume that it is just a weird coincidence, but as the snow starts to pile up outside their doors, so do the bodies.
Trapped with a killer, it’s up to Kenzie to gather what clues she can from the remains of her fellow holidayers.
But the killer isn’t going to just sit around and wait for her to figure it out.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ another well-crafted mystery full of suspense, plot twists, and nail-biting tension as Kenzie and Zachary work diligently to unravel the clues to the bizarre happenings at the lodge where they were hoping to enjoy a peaceful and relaxing vacation.
If you are a reader of the Zachary Goldman Mysteries series, you have already met Kenzie Kirsch. This series is a spinoff from Zachary Goldman Mysteries, giving Kenzie a front-and-center position in solving medical mysteries.
Looking for a strong female lead in an engaging medical mystery? Award-winning and USA Today Bestselling Author P.D. Workman brings you an up-and-coming Medical Examiner’s Assistant who is right up your alley.
Join Dr. Kenzie Kirsch as she uncovers mysteries, conspiracies, and thrills!
No doubt the best I have read from this author.
—T Olsen, Goodreads reviewer
Dosed to Death is $2.99 for this weekend, and then the price will be going up
Divided We Fall
Christmas 1939 was a Christmas like no other.
With war declared just a few months ago, any thoughts of celebration are overshadowed with worries about loved ones who have gone off to fight. And it is not just those who are fighting who are a cause for concern.
When Philip discovers his best friend, Ronnie, is missing he knows that it is up to him to track him down. Winter has arrived with a vengeance and the heavy snowfall makes the search difficult, even worse when there is the blackout to cope with.
This story explores the conflicting realities of a war that asked so much from so many.
This range of novellas explores life during World War Two for many of the characters in Isabella Muir’s popular Sussex Crime series.
Look out for the other novellas in the Sussex Crime series – More than Ashes, Waiting for Sunshine,The Harvest and Choices – to discover the stories behind the Sussex Crime characters in these heart-warming tales.
Dead on Doughnuts
A murdered chef. A poisoned pastry. Can a young barista deliver a killer their just desserts?
Maddy dreams of opening her own detective agency with her best friend. Fresh off her A-levels and looking to save up funds, she and her BFF take a gap-year job serving coffee to rich tourists at an Austrian ski resort. But when someone tampers with one of Maddy’s sweet creations to snuff out a snooty pastry chef, the offending doughnut becomes a recipe for disaster…
With her dreams of becoming a PI in serious danger, Maddy has next to no time to preserve the cafe’s reputation and clear her name. But as the suspect list rises and the trail of breadcrumbs grows stale, her future rests on bringing the killer to justice.
Can Maddy close her very first case before she’s cooked?
Dead on Doughnuts is a deliciously sweet culinary cozy mystery. If you like quirky characters, a heaping measure of intrigue, and tasty twists and turns, then you’ll love Sarah Jane Weldon’s scrumptious whodunit.
Buy Dead on Doughnuts to pin a sticky suspect today!
Aunt Dimity: Snowbound
In their latest adventure, a pleasant woodland stroll through the English countryside is rudely cut short by the blizzard of the century, forcing Lori to take shelter in Ladythorne Abbey—an old pile still haunted by the presence of the madwoman whose prison it once was.
But the abbey’s greatest secret is the priceless jewel it conceals somewhere within its cloisters—an heirloom that hides a treacherous past that Lori’s fellow guests can’t wait to get their hands on.
Only Aunt Dimity’s indispensable wisdom can help Lori unravel a mystery that is considerably thicker than the accumulating snow in this page-turning treat.
Nailed: Resort to Murder
Julienne is snow bound in the middle of the Rocky Mountains with a killer striking at will.
Julienne LaMere gets to attend a Resort Management conference at a prestigious ski resort in the Colorado Mountains. What should be an enjoyable getaway attending workshops by day and shopping and enjoying the resort by night comes to a screeching halt when a loud-mouthed guest is murdered plus the roads and town shut down for an epic blizzard.
In addition to attending the conference, dodging a smitten teen boy, and seeking clues among the gossiping – and increasingly tense – guests, her best friend’s heart has warmed to an unlikely man and may get broken. As if her mind isn’t already fully occupied, Julienne and her new boyfriend Mason are skiing down troubled slopes in their relationship. Will Julienne put the scant clues together and unveil the culprit before a murderer gets away?
Nailed is the second book in Avery Daniel’s Resort to Murder series is contemporary cozy mystery. If you like Cleo Coyle, Maddy Hunter, Duffy Brown, and Annette Dashofy, then you’ll love this series with a strong intelligent sleuth, lavish settings, and tantalizing mysteries.
Buy this spunky and clean cozy mystery and start enjoying Julienne’s adventures today!
A Highland Christmas
Celebrate the holidays with M. C. Beaton, the queen of cozy mysteries!
In the dark, wintry highlands of Lochdubh, Scotland, where the local Calvinist element resists the secular trimmings of Christmas, the spirit of Old St. Nick is about as welcome as a flat tire on a deserted road. Nor is crime taking a holiday, as Constable Hamish Macbeth soon finds himself protecting an unhappy girl, unlocking the secrets of a frightened old woman, and retrieving some stolen holiday goods.
Now the lanky lawman must use all his Highland charm and detective skills to make things right. And he had better do it quickly, for the church bells will soon toll and all of Lochdubh will be forced to face another dreary winter without the comforting embrace of Yuletide cheer.
Hercule Poirot’s Christmas
In Hercule Poirot’s Christmas, the holidays are anything but merry when a family reunion is marred by murder—and the notoriously fastidious investigator is quickly on the case.
Christmas Eve, and the Lee family’s reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture and a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed.
When Hercule Poirot offers to assist, he finds an atmosphere not of mourning but of mutual suspicion. It seems everyone had their own reason to hate the old man…
Frozen Fear
All injured cop Claire Beckett wants is to clear her name and get her job back.
After being shot in the line of duty, the detective constable is recovering in cottage country, along with her friend’s dog, Kojak. But it’s more than a vacation. Much more.
The death of a look-alike friend brings danger right to the front door of Claire’s quaint log cabin. And, the picturesque village of Falcon Lake serves up murder, kidnapping, a mysterious new neighbor, and a blizzard of clues and suspects.
Claire has to face facts. She has no badge, no gun, and no backup. But she’s right in the path of a killer. All she knows how to do is act like a cop and investigate.
Her neighbor is newcomer Miles Gallagher. He’s distant and as chilly as the winter weather. But helping Claire stay alive and stop a killer may thaw his heart.
Meanwhile things aren’t adding up for Claire at work. The tragedy of her boss’s ambush, where she was injured, is being laid at her doorstep. How can she clear her name and get back to work?
Frozen Fear is Book 1 of the Murder In Season cozy mystery trilogy.
This fast-paced cozy mystery has lots of action but no graphic violence, sex or swearing.
Ice Cold Murder
When Charlie agrees to accompany her friend Claire to her late grandmother’s reading of the will, she assumes she is simply there for moral support.
She doesn’t expect things to get so … strange.
It’s odd enough that it takes place over a weekend, but that’s just the beginning …
They also need to stay in Claire’s grandma’s supposedly haunted house with Claire’s estranged family.
Things get even worse when a huge storm snows them in. No electricity, no phone, and no way out.
Throw a dead body into the mix, and there’s no question it’s now the world’s worst family gathering. Ever.
At least Charlie brought lots of tea, which she’s going to need as she races to solve this closed-circle mystery before her friend’s dysfunctional family get-together results in anyone else being murdered.
Meet Charlie. Better known as “Aunt Charlie” from the award-winning Secrets of Redemption series. She’s back, making teas and solving cases in this funny, twisty, cozy mystery series set in the 1990s in Redemption, Wisconsin.
Mistletoe Murder
As if baking holiday cookies, knitting a sweater for her husband’s gift, and making her daughter’s angel costume for the church pageant weren’t enough things for Lucy Stone’s busy Christmas schedule, she’s also working nights at the famous mail-order company Country Cousins. But when she discovers Sam Miller, its very wealthy founder, dead in his car from an apparent suicide, the sleuth in her knows something just doesn’t smell right.
Taking time out from her hectic holiday life to find out what really happened, her investigation leads to a backlog of secrets as long as Santa’s Christmas Eve route. Lucy is convinced that someone murdered Sam Miller. But who and why? With each harrowing twist she uncovers in this bizarre case, another shocking revelation is exposed. Now, as Christmas draws near and Lucy gets dangerously closer to the truth, she’s about to receive a present from Santa she didn’t ask for—a killer who won’t be satisfied until everyone on his shopping list is dead, including Lucy herself.…
Cordial Killing
A fun Colorado bed and breakfast who-dun-it perfect for days stuck inside.
When the Brandywine Inn guests are trapped with a killer in their midst, Anne Freemont tries to uncover the killer before anyone else dies. But as the blizzard approaches, is there a ghost in the bed and breakfast too?
Anne Freemont is excited about the opening of the Brandywine Inn. When the guests arrive, it’s easy to see that there’s bad blood in the group. When one of the guests dies, it seems to have been of natural causes but when another person dies, Anne knows that a killer will stop at nothing for revenge. As a blizzard bears down on the inn, can Anne uncover the killer before someone else dies?
Cordial Killing is the second book in the Backyard Farming series by Vikki Walton. The backyard farming series can be read in any order. Each book has a theme and Cordial Killer is about elderberry cordial, along with the theme of friendship.
Sugar Cookie Murder
The holidays are the icing on the cake for bakery owner Hannah Swensen. Surrounded by her loved ones, she has all the ingredients for a perfect Christmas—until murder is added to the mix… When it comes to holidays, Minnesotans rise to the occasion—and the little town of Lake Eden is baking up a storm with Hannah leading the way. The annual Christmas Buffet is the final test of the recipes Hannah has collected for the Lake Eden Holiday Buffet Cookbook.
The recently divorced Martin Dubinski arrives at the buffet with his new Vegas showgirl wife—all wrapped up in glitter and fur. His ex-wife, however, seems as cool as chilled eggnog. And when Hannah’s mother’s antique Christmas cake knife disappears, its discovery in the décolletage of the new—and now late—Mrs. Dubinski puts the festivities on ice.
With everyone stranded at the community center by a blizzard, Hannah puts her investigative skills to the test, using the ingredients at hand: half the town of Lake Eden—and a killer. Now, as the snowdrifts get higher, it’s up to Hannah to dig out all the clues—and make sure that this white Christmas doesn’t bring any more deadly tidings…
Dead Mule Swamp: Mistletoe
Anastasia Raven accepts an invitation to accompany her friends Cora and Jerry on a Christmas ski holiday at the historic Janes Mill Bed and Breakfast. The rambling Victorian house, deep within Thousand Lakes State Forest, is being renovated by the new owners, Frank and Betty Farnsworth, who want to show off the beautiful home and location.
A winter storm isolates the party. What could possibly go wrong? Ana is joined by her son Chad on this adventure, and Jimmie Mosher’s family joins the fun and mayhem to cater the party as Cherry Blossom Cuisine.
