Christmas Suspense Mysteries

Pathologist Toni Day and her husband, Hal, are mystified when she starts receiving grisly Christmas cards depicting murders, each accompanied by a twisted verse from The Twelve Days of Christmas, and she and her partners are suddenly inundated with autopsies on the corresponding bodies. The victims are members of a jury that convicted Toni’s old boyfriend Robbie of kidnapping and sent him to prison.

It is no ordinary Christmas at Lexham Manor. Six holiday guests find themselves the suspects of a murder enquiry when the old Scrooge, Nathaniel Herriad, who owns the substantial estate, is found stabbed in the back. Whilst the delicate matter of inheritance could be the key to this crime, the real conundrum is how any of the suspects could have entered the locked room to commit this foul deed. For Inspector Hemingway of Scotland Yard, 'tis the season to find whodunit.

Christmas is a time for family and giving, and a wealthy woman in Adelaide, Oklahoma, is about to embrace both. Discovering that she has a young grandson, the dowager decides to change her will to leave the bulk of her fortune to the young boy, an alteration that stuns the rest of her family. But a scrooge of a determined heir makes sure she never signs the new document. When she is found dead, it's up to that irrepressible spirit Bailey Ruth to save Christmas.

Small-town nurse Noelle Rochester seems to have a target on her back since her elderly neighbor confided her murder suspicions. After the neighbor is killed and somebody starts following Noelle, she flees to her uncle in Christmas Tyme, Colorado. Nearly run off the road, she turns to a former private investigator, Juan Rivera. But is he ready for or capable of a case like hers? After his fiancée's death, Juan closed himself off to the world. But he can't refuse help to a scared stranger, especially one who reminds him of the woman he's grieving. Two dead bodies, one drive-by shooting, and ...

Sherlock Holmes’s discovery of a mysterious musical score initiates a devious Christmas challenge set by Irene Adler, with clues that are all variations on the theme of “theft without theft”, such as a statue missing from a museum found hidden in the room it was taken from. In the snowy London lead-up to Christmas, Holmes’s preoccupation with the “Adler Variations” risks him neglecting the case of his new client, Norwegian arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen, who has received a series of threats in the form of animal carcasses left on his doorstep.

Lonely Charles Latterly arrives at his small hotel hoping that the island's blue skies and gentle breezes will brighten his spirits. Unfortunately, there's no holiday cheer to be found among his fellow guests, who include a pompous novelist, a stuffy colonel, a dangerously ill-matched married couple, and an ailing old man. The one charming exception is orphaned teenager Candace Finbar, who takes Charles under her wing and introduces him to the island's beauty.

More than stockings are hung when hunky chorus members drop like snowflakes. Once again, our favorite thespians will need to use their drama skills to catch the killer and make the yuletide gay before their Christmas balls get cracked.

When four trail hunters go missing in the fells of Cumbria on Christmas Eve, the race is on to find them before nightfall – when the temperature plummets. After hours of searching, the first body is found… Not frozen in the snow, but brutally murdered and bearing a warning: the real hunt has begun. As a snowstorm descends, three lives hang in the balance. But can the killer be caught before the trail goes cold?

Libby Sarjeant is deep into rehearsals for the annual pantomime when a body is found in a doorway two weeks before Christmas - and Libby and her friend Fran are called into action once again, when their investigation leads them to a local brewery and the sale of many of its pubs. With the help of a team of local publicans, can Libby and Fran unravel the case before it's too late?

A short story from British Library Crime Classic The Christmas Card Crime and Other Stories. In this festive short story featuring Francis Durbridge’s favourite debonair amateur detective, Paul Temple journeys to Switzerland to identify an elusive criminal.

When a group of short construction workers begins building a school playground, Lisa begins to suspect that they are really Christmas elves, but Melody and Howie think Lisa has an overactive imagination.

Claudine Burroughs, a volunteer in Hester Monk's clinic for sick and injured prostitutes, no longer expects closeness with her coldly ambitious husband and dreads the holidays. Then, at a glittering Yuletide gala, she meets the attractive poet Dai Tregarron, and suddenly her spirits lift. But an hour later, this fascinating man is enmeshed in a nightmare - accused of killing a young streetwalker who had been smuggled into the party.

When Mrs. Claus is found murdered days before the Annual Heywood Christmas Festival, Sheriff Mallory Richards cancels the beloved event. As the flu takes out the whole sheriff’s department—except for Deputy Jordan Branson—he begs Sam to help him find the killer. She and Annabelle set out to catch the murderer but land themselves in a tangled web of deception and danger.

Once a peaceful, picture-perfect village in the Peak District, Merrywell has recently become the setting for more than just postcard-perfect views. This Christmas, while the festive markets are brimming with mulled wine and holiday cheer, a shocking murder throws everything into disarray. Enter Violet Brewster, amateur sleuth extraordinaire (when she's not balancing a cup of hot cocoa and avoiding suspicious-looking mince pies). With her sharp wit and even sharper instincts, Violet must navigate the holiday chaos to solve the case before the season’s spirit turns even more deadly.

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

Frank Reynolds, man once feared and respected, now slumped, lolling in his wheelchair under the Christmas tree, trapped in a persistent vegetative state. His unresponsive eyes stared out blankly, as his vulturous family carved up the fortune it had taken him a lifetime to amass. But the festive season soon turns bloody, as one by one the bodies start to mount as the family realizes there is a killer among them.

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.

Christmas is almost here, and Alice-Miranda and her closest friends are celebrating early at Highton Hall. But it's not all gingerbread, parties and present shopping. There are mysteries to be solved! Why are Christmas decorations disappearing and local stores empty of festive treats? What long-kept family secret does Alice-Miranda discover? More importantly, what will she do about it?

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.

Advised by a quack doctor in 1915 that her unborn child is at risk for lunacy, a wealthy woman pays a midwife to secretly switch her baby with the newborn daughter of a penniless couple. Twenty-one years later, when the horrifying truth is revealed in a Last Will and Testament, Harper Harrington is forced to swap places with Veezie, the rightful heir. The backwoodsy Veezie wastes no time booting Harper out of palatial Nine Gables. With no funds and nowhere to go, Harper moves into the rundown shanty that Veezie previously called home, in Goose Hollow, Alabama. But Harper soon discovers the ...