Christmas Thriller

Concurrently being published as "Raising the Dead / Ill Wind (Miss Henry Mystery Series Book 13)". Two cozy Christmas shorts are included in this holiday short story collection. Ill Wind (Butterscotch Jones Mystery Series Book 12) Twas the night before Christmas and the Gulch was missing both persons and toilet paper. Butterscotch Jones, unwilling Canadian detective, volunteers to to make a run to Irish Camp where the Wings is grounded with the town's much needed Christmas supplies. With the weather closing in and a hijacking in progress at the airport, she may need Santa's sleigh to escape...

After a casual weekly dinner with her brother Alex, Mackenzie’s life is shattered when a brutal ambush leaves her to believe Alex is dead—his killers connected to a notorious crime boss. Fleeing for her life, Mackenzie seeks refuge at the Rocking W Ranch with Levi, her brother’s best friend and former military police. As she struggles to cope with the trauma, Levi vows to protect her and help unravel the mystery behind Alex's murder. In the quiet town of Misty Hollow, danger lurks as secrets are uncovered. Mackenzie and Levi are thrust into a deadly game of cat and mouse, where ...

It’s Christmas in Penstowan, and local amateur dramatics group the Penstowan Players are putting on their annual pantomime. This year it’s ‘Aladdin’, and half the town have been drafted in to help, including Shirley Parker, who only has a small part in the chorus but will no doubt upstage everybody, and Tony Penhaligon, who’s treading the boards as the baddie, Abanazar. Ex-Metropolitan police officer turned caterer Jodie Parker has managed to get away with not appearing, but only if she agrees to cater the opening night party.

This Christmas, the stalker is far too close. Photographer Ivy Frost lives for capturing the perfect portrait—until her Secret Santa starts obsessively capturing her. It begins with a letter, then escalates to emails, texts, and more. She’s lonely but these unsettling messages prove she’s never truly alone. The stalker, fixated on the perfect life they never had, knows intimate details about Ivy’s past and stays uncomfortably close to her present. As the messages grow darker, Ivy’s paranoia spirals.

A holiday party takes an unexpected turn after an anonymous gift surfaces during the white elephant exchange. The contents from the mysterious package trigger events that catapult Thom Bailey into an exciting thrill packed adventure that unlocks incredible secrets linked to his past.

Sarah Booth Delaney and her friends can't help falling in love with Christmas this year, which they plan to spend celebrating the King of Rock n' Roll at the annual Elvis Festival in Tupelo. The main attraction is an Elvis impersonator competition, drawing impersonators from all over the world to honor the king. But before the revelry can get underway, a priceless jewel-encrusted belt once belonging to Elvis is stolen from its display case, and Sarah Booth and Tinkie are roped into the biggest heist in the history of Mississippi.

“M.G. Cole is a brilliant new addition to the echelon of British crimewriters.” Peter James "Dark, grim, tense. A compelling new voice." PAUL FINCH, author of the Detective Mark Heckenburg novels. DCI David Garrick faces his most difficult task yet with a serial killer hunting people on dating apps… and a brutal arsonist punishing their victims in the most horrific ways imaginable. As the two cases begin to overlap, Garrick and his team find themselves on a twisting path where nothing is as it seems, and nobody is to be trusted. Recovering from a delicate operation, Garrick begins to ...

On 1st of December, renowned puzzle setter, loner, and Christmas curmudgeon Edie O'Sullivan finds a hand-delivered present on her doorstep. Unwrapping it, she finds a jigsaw box and, inside, six jigsaw pieces. When fitted together, the pieces show part of a crime scene—blood-spattered black and white tiles and part of an outlined body. Included in the parcel is a message: 'Four, maybe more, people will be dead by midnight on Christmas Eve, unless you can put all the pieces together and stop me.' It's signed Rest In Pieces.

As I walk into the pine-scented air of my seaside childhood home, gripping my husband Neil’s hand tight, I have a brief moment of hope. Maybe this Christmas will be different — for once my family might get on fueled by mulled wine and festive cheer. But the sound of happy carols are replaced by my older sister Christy’s over-loud laugh and slurred words. Rebecca, my younger sister, stalks out of the room as soon as I enter, as though I’m the Grinch here to steal Christmas. And their husbands, brash and arrogant, slap Neil’s back in a way that promises torment rather than welcome.

Christmas in Caerphilly is wonderful! Unless you’re a Canadian whose inconsiderate boss is forcing you to spend the holiday there, far from family and friends, with only a slim chance of a white Christmas. Meg already has her hands full, trying to make the season festive for the dozen programmers who are staying with her and Michael while working on a rush project with her brother’s software company. At least it’s an interesting project, since the Canadian company is doing forensic genealogy and DNA analysis. But when the boss is found murdered, there are too many suspects.

It's Christmas and the well-born guests who have gathered at Applecross for a delicious weekend of relaxation are warmed by roaring fires, mistletoe, and gorgeously wrapped gifts. It's scarcely the setting for misfortune, and no one - not even that clever young aristocrat and budding sleuth Vespasia Cumming-Gould - anticipates the tragedy that is to darken this light-hearted holiday house party. But soon one young woman lies dead, a suicide, and Vespasia must uncover the heartbreaking truth behind the tragedy.

As the year comes to a close, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson must set out through snow laden London to investigate the theft of a priceless clock and the receipt of seven macabre Christmas cards. Will they solve the murderous mystery before they too receive the unwanted 'compliments of the season'? Written by esteemed writer, Anthony Horowitz, and originally published in the Daily Mail, this short story is a festive treat for all fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective, Sherlock Holmes.

It's Christmas 1909, and for once Lady Hardcastle - respectable gentlewoman, amateur spy - and her lady's maid, Florence Armstrong, are setting sleuthing aside. They are invited to the festivities up at The Grange, as guests of Sir Hector and Lady Farley-Stroud. But barely have corks been popped and parlour games played when a mysterious crime comes to light.

Seth, the seven-year-old Earl of Woodridge, is spending Christmas at Halton House and he would like nothing better than to help trim the tree with the Christmas decorations his father had carved for him. But no one has any idea where these decorations are. Determined to make the young Earl's wish come true, Evie and her bodyguard, Tom Winchester, set out to a nearby village where the young Earl had lived in the hope that they might recover the lost decorations. They find themselves among a group of people who might all be suspects in the murder of a local villager.

Thomas Pitt's sister-in-law, Emily Radley, is suddenly called from London to be with her dying aunt. Leaving her husband and two children behind, she makes the long journey to her aunt's home in Connemara, an all-but-forgotten town on the coast of Western Ireland. Emily soon discovers that a tragic legacy is haunting the once close-knit community. Violent storms ravage the coast and keep alive painful memories of an unsolved murder-and unsettling fears that a culprit may still be among them.

The oldest mystery specialty bookstore in the world, The Mysterious Bookshop, has for most of its forty-five-year history commissioned an original short story as a holiday gift for its customers. Written exclusively for the store, the stories were given as a holiday gift to its customers as a thank you for their business, handed out or mailed between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.

It’s three days before Christmas, and detective-turned-chef Jodie ‘Nosey’ Parker is drafted in to cater a charity event run by a notorious millionaire at a 13th-century abbey on Bodmin Moor. Things get more complicated when a snowstorm descends, stranding them all, and the next morning they find one of the guests has been gruesomely murdered in their bed…

Lilith Jones was a statistical anomaly. Her mother found her face down on the frozen sidewalk by the light of the single streetlamp on Pugsley Avenue, with her neighbor’s scissors stuck in her back. The scissors belonged to her neighbor, and so did all the fingerprints on them. Her neighbor, Pat Perkins, hated Lilith. She hated her because her own husband, her brother, and her daughter all loved Lilith. Lilith was charming, beautiful, smart, and adorable.

Reluctant lawyer Andy Carpenter is at the Tara Foundation’s annual Christmas party. The dog rescue organization has always been his true calling, and this is one holiday tradition he can get behind because every dog that’s come through the rescue—and their families—are invited to celebrate. This year’s party is no exception. But before the stockings can be hung by the chimney with care, homicide detectives ruin the evening. Derek Moore, one of the foundation’s best foster volunteers, is arrested for murder.

DI James Walker is ready for a quiet family Christmas in the sleepy village of Kirkby Abbey. But when he opens an early Christmas present left on his doorstep, he soon realises it is no gift. Inside is a gruesome surprise and a promise - 12 days, 12 murders. Not long after, the first body is found, half frozen in the snow. As the blizzards descend, panic spreads through the remote Cumbrian village - there’s a killer amongst them, and with 11 more victims to go, anyone could be next.... Can James stop the killer before they strike again?