Christmas Thriller

Winter, with its unsettling blend of the cosy and the sinister, has long been a popular time for gathering by the bright flame of a candle, or the warm crackling of a fire, and swapping stories of ghosts and strange happenings. Now eight best-selling, award-winning authors, master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre bring this time-honoured tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding collection of new and original haunted tales.

Lori Shepherd and her family spend Christmas in the cottage willed to her by her late Aunt Dimity, but when she discovers a stranger barely alive in the snow, she teams up with a priest and together they unveil the tragic secret that led the stranger to her door.

Something is wrong with Ace Wales. After being separated from his twin brother Walid, he is forced to live with his oldest brother Spacey, who does not think his malicious actions are cute or adorable at all. Keeping him in line, Spacey also comes to terms with his marriage falling apart. While also caring for his morbidly obese wife and young son, he finds himself in over his head. It does not help that Ace has grown obsessed with getting a bow and arrow for Christmas. After a near-death experience in the family, Mason summons the entire gang to the estate on Christmas Eve.

Although Father Tom Christmas serves his little church in enchanting Thornford Regis with a glad and faithful heart, he never expects to find himself skydiving to raise money for it. Nor, safely back on the ground, to see two of the other divers leap from the plane, then tangle in a midair punch-up and begin falling to the earth.

Diese Nacht verändert alles – ein neuer Fall für Will Trent. Vor fünfzehn Jahren veränderte sich Sara Lintons Leben schlagartig, als nach einem Barbesuch brutal überfallen wurde. Mittlerweile hat sie es geschafft, das Trauma hinter sich zu lassen: Sara ist erfolgreiche Ärztin und mit einem Mann verlobt, den sie liebt. Doch eines Nachts, während sie in der Notaufnahme arbeitet, verändert sich alles. Eine junge Frau wird nach einem Überfall schwer verletzt eingeliefert, und Sara muss um ihr Leben kämpfen.

Covid, Mayhem and Murder MARCO IS A HUSTLER’S HUSTLER. Loyalty proves more than a word when his plug, Genesis, commands him to kill a traitor in his Atlanta-based crew during the Christmas season. Marco agrees because he is willing to do anything to carve out a place as Genesis’ right hand. But when top-level hustlers in Genesis’ camp start turning up dead from the result of a string of robberies in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, Marco must discover who the robbers are, and deal with them, before his head ends up on a plate. But the deeper he digs, the more he realizes that ...

A caroling donkey arrives in Clover Grove before Christmas with tidings of a new murder. Stray rescue animals are business as usual for hobby farmer Ivy and her sheepdog Keats. Misfits blend seamlessly into the menagerie, and the more the merrier. When a mouthy, grieving donkey demands room at the inn right before Christmas, however, Ivy bites off more than she can chew. He’s got a message that’s far from festive, and he won’t stop singing the blues till she figures out his secret.

In this story, listeners will discover the solutions to several Sherlockian mysteries.

Accompanied by her loyal maid and friend, Cecily Nugent, they arrive at Selfridges giggling with excitement, but unknown to them, their afternoon of delights was to take a very different turn. Yet again, Camille and Cecily are called upon to utilize their sleuthing skills to find a murderer.

Everleigh Beckett’s plans for Christmas are simple: Forget her ex is getting married to another woman, keep her cat Roscoe in the lifestyle he’s accustomed to, and hunker down until all the Yuletide cheer is over. Hoping to forget the season, she agrees to work extra shifts in the Missing Persons Division so her partner can spend time with his family. What Everleigh doesn’t realize is that one of the most infamous baby-snatching cases of 1986 is about to land in her lap.

Single mom Caley James has three kids, a good-for-nothing ex and the flu. When her furnace dies, during the longest cold spell Hampstead has ever seen, she thinks Christmas can’t get worse. Until…Her youngest finds a dead body in the basement.

First came a sinister warning to Poirot not to eat any plum pudding...then the discovery of a corpse in a chest, but what can link these baffling cases? The little grey cells of Monsieur Hercule Poirot! Feast yourself on these intriguing crime mysteries from the distinctive hand of the queen of crime fiction.

Hoping for a relaxing break, Lulu sets off with Conrad on her canal boat The Lark to the picturesque city of Bath to visit friends. But Christmas cheer soon gives way to festive fear when the pair learn of a ruthless kidnapping plot that is plaguing parents in the area. As the kidnappers fuel panic with further demands, the pair must unravel clues faster than Conrad can charm with his witty banter if they are to stand any chance of bringing the criminals to justice in time to save the holidays . . .

Detective Mike Nash is going to have a very unmerry Christmas. In an ordinary terraced house, a family dies. Poisoned by carbon monoxide. Then comes a suspicious house fire, with more bodies at the charred scene. A drug addict is murdered in the most bizarre medieval manner. And a scientist's daughter disappears. There's a killer on the loose this holiday season. DI Mike Nash follows the leads of these disparate crimes. One very dangerous person seems intent on revenge. Can he stop the killer before anyone else pays the ultimate price?

Amazon Best-selling writer Bronze Medal-winning writer--Global Book Awards Silent Night, Murderous Night The presents, kidnapping, murder, treason and hate, under her tree weren’t what Ruth Arbuthnot had wished for. For the first Christmas since her husband’s death, she is looking forward to a wonderful Christmas Season with her granddaughter and her friends, but she has a mysterious enemy who is determined to ruin her holidays. Anxiously preparing for the return of the El Paso National Guard from Afghanistan, Ruth is blindsided when she calls an audit of her husband’s pet company and...

It is Christmas Eve. The Lee family reunion is shattered by a deafening crash of furniture, followed by a high-pitched wailing scream. Upstairs, the tyrannical Simeon Lee lies dead in a pool of blood, his throat slashed. But when Hercule Poirot, who is staying in the village with a friend for Christmas, 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.

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.

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.

Posing as her sister for Christmas is the only way to save her, but Maggie Lofton needs help - even if it means working with her twin’s cowboy ex-boyfriend Liam Pike. But between the bull’s-eye on her back and the dangerous connection she’s forming with Liam, Maggie’s mission is harder than expected. Will their tenuous partnership be enough to shield her when the killer closes in?

December 1860. Headed for the morning shift at the Swindon Locomotive Works is an army of men pouring out of terraced houses built by the GWR, a miniature town and planned community that aims to provide for its employees from cradle to grave. Unfortunately, boilersmith Frank Rodman is headed for the grave sooner than he'd expected, or he will be once his missing head is found. Colbeck, the Railway Detective, finds his investigation into Rodman's murder mired in contradictions.