Holiday Crime

The halls are decked, the deck is stacked, and here comes that jolly old elf. Junior Bender, divorced father of one and burglar extraordinaire, finds himself stuck inside the Edgerton Mall, and not just as a last-minute shopper (though he is that too). Edgerton isn't exactly the epicenter of holiday cheer, despite its two Santas, canned Christmas music, chintzy bows, and festive lights. The mall is a fossil of an industry in decline; many of its stores are closed, and to make matters worse, there is a rampant shoplifting problem.

It is 1890, and in the days before Christmas, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson are visited at Baker Street by a new client. Eve Allerthorpe, eldest daughter of a grand but somewhat eccentric Yorkshire-based dynasty, is greatly distressed, as she believes she is being haunted by a demonic Christmas spirit. Her late mother told her terrifying tales of the sinister Black Thurrick, and Eve is sure that she has seen the creature from her bedroom window. What is more, she has begun to receive mysterious parcels of birch twigs, the Black Thurrick’s calling card.

There's a cardinal rule in football that you never break. You don't mess around with another player's girl and you don't touch the coach's daughter. Well, I've never been good at following the rules. Belinda Carmichael is uptight, prissy and the hottest girl I've ever seen. She's also the head coach's precious baby girl. And she's entirely off limits. The trouble is, I didn't know who she was when I met her. And she had no idea I was her daddy's newest star player. It was her job to show me around campus, and I showed her a lot more than that. But we fumbled the ball – she never told a ...

The happy, tranquil, traditional way of life on the remote, little Scottish island of Skran far out in the Firth of Clyde is threatened with unwanted upheaval along with an environmental disaster by big business. Can Bonnie and Clive Sutherland help prevent it or will money speak. Drams, Jams and Scams follows on from where our previous book Daydream Believers left off. Drams are the moonshine peatreek that is illicitly distilled on the island, that they are continually being offered. The jams are what they get into when they encounter tight spots; including ghosts, a mysterious station ...

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?

We all know a person like Raymond Winters. He is Everyman. You see him daily on your commute to work. He sits in the cubicle next to yours. He's the guy plodding through life, just going through the motions. He's not happy. His work is not fulfilling. But he never expected anything more. At 41, he's stuck in a rut, without the energy to climb out. Sure, he dreams of a different life. He dreams about it a lot. But Raymond knows the difference between dreams and reality. Then Raymond's life takes an unexpected sharp turn after a chance encounter with a strange woman. Overnight he finds ...

Trees decorated, stockings full of presents, and another case to crack! FREE on Kindle Unlimited! The Rowling family is gearing up for another Merry Christmas, and Mandy has her hands full with holiday prep, but how can she get into the spirit of the season when the victim in her latest case isn’t a ghost? Twenty years ago, during a Christmas Eve blackout, Kevin Holt, the husband of a rich heiress, lost his memory in a fall down the stairs of their mansion. Now he’s discovered evidence that someone might have been trying to kill him, and all he wants for Christmas is to find out who. ...

A tricky art theft and talking teacup… Throw in a perky ghost and a perkier toddler! FREE on Kindle Unlimited! When a slightly tricky art theft takes place in an upscale Upper East Side neighborhood, Mandy and Rick are called in to crack the case. With their daughter Sophie and Mandy’s ghost pal Jackie in tow, the USCAB duo tackle a baffling switcheroo. An art dealer’s pricey Japanese vase has been replaced with a cheap fake and an attempted murder complicates the situation. The only witness: a talking teacup. Can Mandy coax the spirit of an ancient Samurai with a fuzzy memory to ...

Have yourself a scary little Christmas. In the heart of the holiday season, priceless paintings have vanished from a Park Avenue murder scene. Now, dashing French detective Luc Moncrief must become a quick study in the art of the steal - before a cold-blooded killer paints the town red. Merry Christmas, Detective.

Since Father Tibor Kasparian escaped the Soviet Union, he has done his best to keep his philosophy to himself - not out of fear, but because he knows that few people could stomach an honest account of life under Stalinism. When he gets an invitation to spend a semester teaching philosophy at Independence College, Kasparian hesitates, but his friend Gregor Demarkian, a former FBI investigator, convinces him to accept. They will both wish he had decided to stay away.

It's Christmastime, but not everyone is jolly - especially not Vonne Barnett. Her dead body has been found in Victoria Square. Katie Bonner, the manager of Artisan's Alley, happens to be at the tea shop Vonne's mother, Francine, owns when the news is delivered. Vonne left a trail of men behind her so the suspects are many - but the clues are few. A broken teacup leads Katie to one of the suspects, but before she can investigate, she's attacked. Katie may be closing in on a murderer, but time is ticking because the murderer is definitely closing in on her.

Paraskevi has now settled into married life, on her own Greek island, with her own taverna to run, and with the man whose heart she captured in the novel, Waiting For Kitto. Worn out through constant work, a number of factors lead to a change in her attitude and a change in her life; A customer leaves an ancient, feminist book for her, after observing the actions of Paraskevi's husband. Her good friend Rebecca, sends a Frenchman, from England to Greece to broaden his poetry, and to help Paraskevi. Paraskevi discovers, through a village friend, that her husband is having an affair. Plotting ...

All the magick in the realm can’t make the food in Wonderland palatable, but maybe a little bit of Honey can! FREE on Kindle Unlimited! Princess Hanako, Honey to her friends, is moments away from launching a career as a reality TV star when a mysterious portal whisks her away to another world. Magick may rule in Wonderland, but no amount of hocus pocus can fix the terrible food. Cooking for her new family gives Honey a purpose, and hunky Alex from the Order of Falcon is nothing short of delicious, but when her popular café is burgled Honey begins to wonder what the powers that be really ...

Beach wedding and a murder… Throw in an angry mermaid threatening to destroy the wedding! FREE on Kindle Unlimited! There’s trouble in Paradise, and the Rowling family is on the case. The island wedding of Mandy’s BFF Fiona and famous exorcist Brian Powers becomes the backdrop for a murder investigation when the body of a notorious loan shark is found in the dunes. But how did a man drown so far from the water? An angry mermaid threatens to wreak havoc if the killer isn’t caught, but with no spirits to question, does Mandy stand a ghost of a chance to solve the case? Find out in ...

At age 65 widower David Roche has finally had enough. Sick of the hurtful insults hurled at him by his own elderly mother, and tired of being hit up for endless loans by his younger brother and sister, David leaves his small home town in Maine looking to start a new life. David will soon discover that he isn't the only one who has been stuck with a vile family when he meets Sharon Crane who desperately needs to escape her own control-freak daughter. Their chance meeting results in a tale of love and unexpected danger. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Donald W. Desaulniers is a retired Canadian attorney ...

Christmas was fast approaching at the conclusion of Eight Blonde Dolls, and A Candy Red Christmas finds Seth and Caroline off to South America for a holiday both love. However, with Harry’s time possibly running short, and Candy in need of the forgiveness she cannot find within herself, neither has ever seen a Christmas more in need of miracles.

Here in Slough House, the intelligence service's home for inept spies, it's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. Roddy Ho is used to being the one the slow horses turn to when they need miracles performed, and he's always been Jackson Lamb's Number Two. So when Lamb has a photograph that needs doctoring, it's Ho he entrusts with the task. Christmas is a time for memories, but Lamb doesn't do memories—or so he says. But what is it about the photo that makes him want to alter it? How would the slow horses cope if Roddy Ho didn't exist?

Meet the hottest sleuth apprentice in town. She’s tiny, cute, and rocks the world on a stroller! FREE on Kindle Unlimited! It’s another haunting Halloween for the Rowling Family! New addition Baby Sophie is almost a year old, and Mandy is taking motherhood in stride, but when ghost-in-law Clara pops in asking for help for a newly deceased friend, Mandy’s back on the job, trading maternity leave for murder. A woman who fell from the balcony of her Brooklyn home insists she just had a dizzy spell, but a big insurance payout, a cheating husband and a jealous paramour point to foul play. ...

Sugarbury Falls in the fall—cinnamon spice, craft fairs, and pumpkin carving competitions. But when a reporter is murdered at a local haunted house event, the festive spirit takes a sinister turn, scaring the whole community. With one of the town’s detectives away on his honeymoon, true crime writer and former journalist Emily Fox steps in to help unravel the eerie web of suspects and motives. The victim made dangerous enemies in his pursuit of juicy stories—a wealthy businesswoman accused of killing a squatter in her warehouse, a jealous girlfriend, and even Emily’s daughter’s ...

John could give up drinking to the limits of his dangerously anti-social levels; but he's no quitter. Expectations run low for our functioning drunk, acutely aware that sobriety brings with it a certain duty of care and obligation to 'do the right thing,' that drunkenness does not. With the easy conscience of a man swimming in a butt of whisky our hero embarks upon a 'fishy' burglary in order to finance his friend Lady Hester's madcap search for Alexander the Greats' lost treasure. Along with his faithful buddy Tom, the three set off to Rhodes, Greece, deluded and undeterred in their quest ...