Mysteries for Christmas? It shouldn’t come as a surprise that you can find books on any subject, including mysteries that revolve around Christmas or take place during Christmas. While I don’t have any full-length mysteries that are Christmas-themed — yet, I do have some coming — I do have:
Dog-Free Dinner
Dog-Free Dinner is a Holiday Short Story that is part of the Auntie Clem’s Bakery cozy mystery series. In the timeline, Witch-Free Halloween and Dog-Free Dinner fall after book 3, Allergen-Free Assignation. Look for a full-length Christmas book in this series next year.
Vic is looking forward to Christmas with her new Bald Eagles Falls family. Erin—not so much. But she wants to make it a special day for Vic.
An unexpected turn in events changes all of their carefully-laid plans.
This Christmas short, part of the Auntie Clem’s Bakery series, is only available through my website. The series—and your holiday—won’t be complete without it.
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eBook Price: $0.99
She Wore Mourning
She Wore Mourning is not Christmas-themed, but it does take place during the Christmas season. In fact, so does book #4, He Was Walking Alone (which takes place one year later). A warning, however, that Christmas is a bad time of year for Zachary, so if you’re looking for a light, feel-good Christmas story, this is not it! He Was Walking Alone does include a Christmas reunion for Zachary.
A dead child.
A mother deep in mourning.
Private Investigator Zachary Goldman’s life isn’t all roses, but he tries to put his own shattered life behind him to investigate the death of five-year-old Declan Bond.
Declan’s death has been ruled an accident, but his grandmother thinks there is more to it. She fears Declan’s mother will not be able to find peace until Zachary can give them an answer once and for all. But as Zachary digs into the circumstances surrounding Declan’s death, he finds that all is not as it seems, and somebody doesn’t want him to find the truth.
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eBook Price: $4.99
*~*~* $0.99 on Kindle for a limited time *~*~*
More Christmas Mysteries
I headed over to Amazon for some more Christmas mysteries, and here is what I came up with!
The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries
Edgar Award-winning editor Otto Penzler collects sixty of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories–many of which are difficult or nearly impossible to find anywhere else. From classic Victorian tales by Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Thomas Hardy, to contemporary stories by Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain, this collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant.
Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-like stories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for–suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural—can be found in these pages.
Jane and the Twelve Days of Christmas
Christmas Eve, 1814: Jane Austen has been invited to spend the holiday with family and friends at The Vyne, the gorgeous ancestral home of the wealthy and politically prominent Chute family. As the year fades and friends begin to gather beneath the mistletoe for the twelve days of Christmas festivities, Jane and her circle are in a celebratory mood: Mansfield Park is selling nicely; Napoleon has been banished to Elba; British forces have seized Washington, DC; and on Christmas Eve, John Quincy Adams signs the Treaty of Ghent, which will end a war nobody in England really wanted.
Jane, however, discovers holiday cheer is fleeting. One of the Yuletide revelers dies in a tragic accident, which Jane immediately views with suspicion. If the accident was in fact murder, the killer is one of Jane’s fellow snow-bound guests. With clues scattered amidst cleverly crafted charades, dark secrets coming to light during parlor games, and old friendships returning to haunt the Christmas parties, whom can Jane trust to help her discover the truth and stop the killer from striking again?
Christmas Cake Murder
It’s Christmas many years ago, and topping young Hannah Swensen’s wish list is becoming the go-to baker in Lake Eden, Minnesota. But as Hannah finds out, revisiting holiday memories can be murder…
With her dream of opening The Cookie Jar taking shape, Hannah’s life matches the hectic December hustle and bustle in Lake Eden—especially when she agrees to help recreate a spectacular Christmas Ball from the past in honor of Essie Granger, an elderly local in hospice care. But instead of poring over decadent dessert recipes for the merry festivities, she instantly becomes enthralled by Essie’s old notebooks and the tale of a woman escaping danger on the streets of New York. Hannah’s surprised by Essie’s secret talent for penning crime fiction. She’s even more surprised when the story turns real. As Hannah prepares to run a bakery and move out of her mother’s house, it’ll be a true miracle if she can prevent another Yuletide disaster by solving a mystery as dense as a Christmas fruitcake . . .
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…
Anne Perry’s Christmas Mysteries
Two holiday novels provide the perfect combination of mystery and murder mixed with a generous helping of Yuletide cheer.
A CHRISTMAS GUEST
When her daughter and son-in-law plan a Christmas vacation to Paris sans hers truly, Grandmama Mariah Ellison travels to the chilly, windswept Romney Marshes to spend the holiday with old friends. But when the body of a fellow guest is found lifeless in bed, Grandmama senses foul play and takes it upon herself to assume the role of amateur detective–uncovering startling truths about the victim . . . and herself as well.
A CHRISTMAS SECRET
Dominic Corde is thrilled to “fill the robe” as substitute vicar in the village of Cottisham while the Reverend Wynter is away on a Christmas holiday. Upon arrival, Dominic and his wife, Clarice, wonder how they will be received by the congregation. But the Cordes soon discover that they have more dire matters to worry about. It turns out that the Reverend Wynter isn’t on holiday at all–and that something very sinister has transpired.
Silent Night / All Through the Night
Mary Higgins Clark, for several years, has given her readers a very special holiday gift — short novels celebrating the Christmas season with tales of suspense and cheer. Now two of her most beloved stories are combined in one special volume — a welcome gift for readers in all seasons.
In Silent Night, Brian, a seven-year-old boy, is in New York City at Christmas with his mother and ten-year-old brother to visit his father, critically ill in the hospital. They plan to give him a St. Christopher medal, in the belief that it will make him well. When Brian sees a woman steal his mother’s wallet, with the medal in it, he embarks on a dangerous journey that changes the life of his mother and that of the thief.
With All Through the Night, two of Mary Higgins Clark’s most endearing characters — Alvirah, the lottery winner turned amateur sleuth, and her husband, Willy — are caught up in a Christmas mystery that begins when a young mother leaves her newborn child on the doorstep of a church rectory on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, and continues with the theft of a precious chalice from the church. It is a captivating tale of false identities and old wrongs made right, as well as a mystery that calls for all of Alvirah’s deductive powers and Willy’s world-class common sense. Even one story by America’s Queen of Suspense is cause for cheer, but this single-volume edition of Silent Night and All Through the Night is a treat for all of Mary Higgins Clark’s devoted fans at any time of the
The 19th Christmas
As the holidays approach, Detective Lindsay Boxer and her friends in the Women’s Murder Club have much to celebrate. Crime is down. The medical examiner’s office is quiet. Even the courts are showing some Christmas spirit. And the news cycle is so slow that journalist Cindy Thomas is on assignment to tell a story about the true meaning of the season for San Francisco.
Then a fearsome criminal known only as “Loman” seizes control of the headlines. Solving crimes never happens on schedule, but as this criminal mastermind unleashes credible threats by the hour, the month of December is upended for the Women’s Murder Club. Avoiding tragedy is the only holiday miracle they seek.
