Christmas Detective

Penrose & Pyke have until Christmas Eve to save the orphans’ home, by unravelling a tangle of tinsel and trickery. Private detective Charlie Pyke was looking forward to spending a quiet Christmas with his fiancée, Grace Penrose. Instead, Charlie and Grace must stop a dubious deal, find a sneak thief and foil a mischievous brother, with the help of a pair of inquisitive orphans and the spirit of a dear departed grandmother. If they can decipher the clues and make it through the dessert course, they just might survive their first family Christmas together. Tinsel and Trickery is a half-...

It’s Christmas - so why not accept a dare to explore a creepy old haunted house? On this third book of the Ava & Carol Detective Agency series, fearless best friends Ava and Carol set out to prove that the Butcher house isn’t haunted. Only, Carol is pretty sure she saw something inside one of the windows - and moments later, they are chased by a headless monster! The girls receive an ominous threat: Stay away or else! Now, more than ever, the girls are determined to find out who is trying to scare them away.

As the Christmas holidays begin at Maude Daneson's rooming house, unsuspecting lodgers receive a most unwelcome present from the person responsible for a series of senseless and bizarre murders - a killer much more cunning than they had suspected.

There's a chill in the air and the days are growing shorter.... It's the perfect time to curl up in front of a crackling fireplace with this winter-themed collection from legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie. But beware of deadly snowdrifts and dangerous gifts, poisoned meals and mysterious guests. This compendium of short stories, some featuring beloved Detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, is an essential omnibus for Christie fans and the perfect gift for mystery lovers.

The year is 1904. Twenty-three-year-old Jemima Pitt, the daughter of Thomas Pitt, head of Britain's Special Branch, is crossing the Atlantic. She is traveling with an acquaintance, Delphinia Cardew, who is to marry the aristocratic Brent Albright in a high-society New York wedding - a grand affair that will join together two fabulously wealthy families, titans of the international financial world. But Jemima senses a mysterious shadow darkening the occasion.

The holiday season is upon the Kerr Gang and what Ellen wants more than anything is to have a family photograph taken with Santa Claus to celebrate her daughter’s first Christmas. Amid the seasonal disturbances and potential disasters which threaten to ruin the holiday, she manages to gather everyone together at the local department store’s North Pole. Before the photographs are completed, however, the “Jolly Old Elf” playing Father Christmas suddenly turns red, begins to choke and within seconds, dies in front of them. A subsequent homicide investigation reveals he was killed by a ...

A castle in the Scottish Highlands cut off by snow. 12 guests gather for the festive season. All of them have secrets. Can DCI Dani Bevan escape a house party when celebration turns to murder? DCI Dani Bevan and her partner, James, are spending the week after Christmas at Strathain House in the Scottish Highlands, guests of the industrialist, Bernard Raven. As soon as they arrive, odd events start to happen and suspicions are aroused about their fellow guests. The weather in their remote Highland location worsens and Dani finds herself trapped at a house party where she doesn’t know who ...

A baking competition with your archenemy… what could possibly go wrong for detective chef Guy Vanduex? It’s almost Christmas and former chef turned private investigator Guy Vanduex and his partner in crime-solving Sylvia Parker are enlisted to discover who is sabotaging a baking competition show. And it’s not just any competition, it’s hosted by Vanduex’s former business partner and archenemy Flynn ‘Barney’ Baker. But when contestants receive mysterious packages with gingerbread houses in the likeness of their restaurants and dead-looking gingerbread men in their likeness… ...

An old English Yule has never been merrier or more mysterious. A New Year's celebration has never looked more joyous but been so potentially deadly. Fearing the 12 Days of Christmas of 1564 may be the last for her ailing, elderly friend, Lady Kat Ashley, Queen Elizabeth decrees a nostalgic, old-fashioned holiday. Delicious dishes for the table, holly and ivy, caroling, wassailing, mumming, and a Lord of Misrule to oversee it all are in the recipe for the revels. But one of the queen's kitchen staff is found as dead as the ornate peacock he was preparing for the feast.

Sylvia Wilcox was just starting to move on from her traumatic past when a cryptic note arrives in her office. Initially, she ignores the accusations, but soon realizes the message contains a dangerous riddle that must be solved. As her painful past claws its way into the present, Sylvia can't ignore the opportunity to find out what happened to her late husband. In a race against time, Sylvia rushes from one location to the next, gathering clues and fighting to stay one step ahead of the cruel puppet master who is pulling the strings in this deadly game.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. A Christmas Eve party at Clevere Hall ends in tragedy when the host is found stabbed to death. Major Ceely certainly wasn’t short of enemies, but who hated him enough to commit the crime?

Meadowood has a new mystery and it's just in time for the holidays! Strings of miniature sparkling lights adorn tree branches and hang across the entrance to the holiday pavilion. Christmas carolers try to enhance the holiday mood, but it was murder in the air, not friendship and goodwill. What can Meredith Gardner do when suddenly her new friend plus the sheriff collapse after drinking cups of poisoned mulled cider? Suspicion and fear run rampant in the town of Meadowood as local businesses are burglarized and everyone becomes a suspect. Newly promoted Chief Deputy Sheriff Doug Gardner ...

When Lily returns home to her aunt's manor house, she discovers that in order to inherit, she and her estranged cousins must stay together over the Christmas week and take part in a family tradition: the annual treasure hunt. But as they are drawn deeper into the game, the clues seem to point not to the deeds to the manor house, but to the key to a 20-year-old mystery: what really happened to Lily's mother? As a snowstorm cuts them off from the village, it becomes apparent that the game has turned deadly and that Lily is fighting for more than just an inheritance.

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. A locked-room mystery that will delight Agatha Christie fans. Dramatist Trevor Lowe and his friend Detective Inspector Shadgold board the Western Express to spend Christmas in the little Cornish village of St Merryan. Heavy snowfall forces their journey to an abrupt halt and, after seeking refuge in a local pub, one of their fellow passengers is found stabbed to death, clutching half a Christmas card. Is the murderer in their midst?

"The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens" is a precious collection of Christmas tales. Christmas spirit, joy, excitement, cheer and Christmas trees against low classes living in despair and poverty. There are two sides to the story but the holiday and its meaning come from the heart no matter what the social status is. "The Christmas Stories of Charles Dickens" is a collection which makes the reader immerse in a parallel universe, so complex in its nature that it almost seems unreal.

Flagged down by Inspector LaStrade of Scotland Yard as they walk through the icy winter streets, Holmes and Watson are transported to the home of the aristocratic Lady Whitebread. Once there, she tells them her traditional holiday centerpiece has vanished in the midst of the Christmas dinner - right under the very noses of her guests. The decoration? An enormous work of the jeweler's art centered upon a three inch round emerald called...the Christmas Jewel.

A medida que el año llega a su fin, Sherlock Holmes y el Dr. Watson deben partir atravesando un Londres cargado de nieve, para investigar el robo de un reloj de valor incalculable y la recepción de siete macabras tarjetas de Navidad. ¿Resolverán el misterio antes de que ellos también reciban los "cumplidos de la temporada" no deseados?

Murder is the guest no one expected this Christmas. Bellbrooke Abbey, 1924 When Penelope van Kessler and her Heist Society team are summoned to England to investigate Lord Bellbrooke’s mysterious disappearance, they expect a routine case. But upon arriving at the snow-covered estate in the Yorkshire Dales, they find the lord dead—poisoned by a festive cup of tea. With Christmas approaching and a snowstorm threatening to trap everyone inside, Penelope and her team must unravel a web of deceit. Lady Anne, their host, is desperate to protect her family's reputation, while Bellbrooke's ...

As Claire Cooperson sits by the fire, wrapping presents and putting them beneath the Christmas tree, she hears what sounds like glass shattering. The unwelcome noise startles her, and she jumps up, tiptoeing toward the back door. A chill brushes across her face, and as the outside wind howls, she wraps her arms around herself, pulling her sweater tighter. Struggling to see in the darkness, Claire switches on the dining room light and finds the cause of the sound she heard. A glass panel in the center of the back door has shattered, spitting jagged shards all over the tile floor. But what ...

A VERY John Jordan Christmas! It's the most wonderful time of the year. And the most stressful. But John Jordan is determined to give his friends and family a very merry Christmas. In order to do so, he'll have to be the man his family and friends have come to expect him to be--a kind, wise, compassionate counselor, and an attentive father, son, husband, and friend--all while his own life lies in ruin. Can John bring joy to those he loves? Can he save Christmas and help his best friend to have a romantic and meaningful Christmas wedding? Find out in A John Jordan Christmas.