Download or read book Twas the Knife Before Christmas written by Jacqueline Frost and published by Crooked Lane Books. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Christmas delight, ’Twas the Knife Before Christmas will charm the stockings off readers of Joanne Fluke and Leslie Meier. It’s out of the cupcake tin, into the fire for Holly White’s best friend, Caroline. Can Holly clear Caroline’s name in time to go caroling? When a body turns up in a larger-than-life candy bowl filled with peppermints on the town square, Holly White is horrified to learn her best friend Caroline is the main suspect. Everyone in town, including Mistletoe, Maine’s sheriff, saw Caroline fighting with the victim on the night of his death. Worse, a custom kitchen knife, engraved with Caroline's initials was found with him. Now, just ten days before Christmas, Holly’s up to her jingle bells in holiday shenanigans and in desperate need of a miracle. Juggling extra shifts at her family’s Christmas tree farm and making enough gingerbread jewelry to satisfy the crowd is already more than she can handle―and now she has to find time to clear her best friend of murder. Add in her budding relationship with the sheriff, and a personal stalker dressed as Santa Claus, and Holly’s ready to fly south until springtime. But her Sherpa-lined mittens come off when Caroline is taken into custody. Can Holly wrap up the case in time for Christmas...even after she gains the true killer’s attention? Find out in ‘Twas the Knife Before Christmas, Jacqueline Frost’s second pine-scented Christmas Tree Farm mystery.

Download or read book The Bark Before Christmas written by Laurien Berenson and published by Kensington Cozies. This book was released on 2015-09-29 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this “enjoyable” holiday mystery by an Agatha Award finalist, a sleuth looks into a posh private school, a prize show dog, and a slain Santa (Publishers Weekly). There’s nothing lovelier than Christmas in Connecticut, but Melanie Travis can scarcely find a moment to enjoy the festivities. With her youngest son approaching toddlerhood, she’s decided to return to her old job at Howard Academy, a posh private school attended by the children of Greenwich’s well-heeled gentry. Balancing work, motherhood, and the hectic dog show circuit takes some fancy footwork, especially when the headmaster taps her to be the chairman of the school’s Christmas Bazaar. The Christmas Bazaar is Howard Academy’s biggest and most important fundraiser, so Melanie feels the pressure to make it a huge success. But everything goes awry when a prize show dog goes missing and Santa turns up dead. The dog’s owner is one of the school’s most perfectly pedigreed alums, and she enlists Melanie to help find the purloined pooch. But just as Melanie starts pawing at the truth, she digs up a sleighful of sinister secrets that leaves everyone feeling less than merry… “Cozy mystery fans and dog lovers will lap this one up.”—Library Journal “Laurien Berenson is a rare breed of writer.”—The Plain Dealer

Download or read book The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries written by Otto Penzler and published by Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. This book was released on 2013-10-22 with total page 674 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Edgar Award-winning editor collects sixty of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories—from Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy, to Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain. • “Anyone who cares about the best mystery writing of the past century and beyond would be lucky to receive this thick volume during the holidays." —The Washington Post This collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant. Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-like stories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for--suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural—can be found in these pages. FEATURING: - Unscrupulous Santas - Crimes of Christmases Past and Present - Festive felonies - Deadly puddings - Misdemeanors under the mistletoe - Christmas cases for classic characters including Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse, Inspector Ghote, A.J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe.

Download or read book Christmas Is Murder written by C. S. Challinor and published by Llewellyn Worldwide. This book was released on 2008 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Christmas is murder-- when you're stranded in East Sussex with a killer. When guests at a secluded Victorian hotel start dying, all hopes for a jolly holiday are dashed.

Download or read book Twelve Slays of Christmas written by Jacqueline Frost and published by Crooked Lane Books. This book was released on 2017-10-10 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Holly White’s fiancé cancels their Christmas Eve wedding with less than two weeks to go, Holly heads home with a broken heart. Lucky for her, home in historic Mistletoe, Maine is magical during Christmastime—exactly what the doctor prescribed. Except her plan to drown her troubles in peppermints and snickerdoodles is upended when local grouch and president of the Mistletoe Historical Society Margaret Fenwick is bludgeoned and left in the sleigh display at Reindeer Games, Holly’s family tree farm. When the murder weapon is revealed as one of the wooden stakes used to identify trees on the farm, Sheriff Evan Grey turns to Holly’s father, Bud, and the Reindeer Games staff. And it doesn’t help that Bud and the reindeer keeper were each seen arguing with Margaret just before her death. But Holly knows her father, and is determined to exonerate him.The jingle bells are ringing, the clock is ticking, and if Holly doesn't watch out, she'll end up on Santa's naughty list in Twelve Slays of Christmas, Jacqueline Frost’s jolly series debut.

Download or read book The Nightingale Before Christmas written by Donna Andrews and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2014-10-21 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the holidays draw near in Caerphilly, Mother volunteers to take part in in a big Christmas-themed decorator show house—each room of a temporarily untenanted house is decorated to the hilt by a different decorator for the public to tour. Of course, Mother insists that Meg pitch in with the organization, and she finds herself surrounded by flamboyant personalities with massive egos clashing and feeling their professional reputations are at stake. Then the rooms start to be sabotaged, and an unfortunate designer turns up dead—making Mother a prime suspect. Can Meg catch the real killer in time to save Mother the indignity of arrest? The brilliantly funny and talented Donna Andrews delivers another winner in the acclaimed avian-themed series that mystery readers have come to love. Cozies make excellent stocking-stuffers, and The Nightingale Before Christmas is guaranteed to put the "ho ho hos" into the holidays for the legions of fans hungry for another Christmas book featuring Meg Langslow. Donna has won many awards for this very popular series, and continues to come up with new hilarious adventures for her endearing heroine. The novel is full of superb screwball comedy as well as Donna's trademark crisp plotting, not to mention bushels of holiday cheer--it wouldn't be the most wonderful time of the year without it.

Download or read book Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen written by Vicki Delany and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2015-11-03 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Rudolph, New York, it’s Christmastime all year long. But this December, while the snow-lined streets seem merry and bright, a murder is about to ruin everyone’s holiday cheer in the first Year-Round Christmas mystery. As the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That’s why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoe-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry’s float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there’s a Scrooge in Christmas Town. Merry isn’t ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph’s Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter’s body on a late night dog walk—and police suspect he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky—Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who’s really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa’s naughty list…

Download or read book Aunt Eater s Mystery Christmas written by Doug Cushman and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 1996-10-03 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘Aunt Eater is back to celebrate Christmas and, of course, to solve a mystery at every turn. In each of these four short, easy-to-read chapters, she finds a small, usually happy, sometimes silly set of circumstances that call for her brand of deductive reasoning and logic. Cushman keeps everything moving with his brisk, well-paced, yet accessible text and bright, lively watercolor illustrations of fully dressed animal characters and bustling activities. A festive addition to beginning-reader shelves.’—SLJ.

Download or read book The Murder Before Christmas written by Michele Pw (Pariza Wacek) and published by . This book was released on 2021-11-09 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: If you've got a problem, Charlie Kingsley probably has a tea that'll help make it right. EXCEPT when it comes to love. She does NOT do love potions. Not even for Courtney, her pregnant new client who showed up three weeks before Christmas seeking a love potion because her husband was cheating on her. So, Courtney asked about poison, instead. She said she was joking. That's what happens between wives and husbands. They get angry and talk about killing each other. They don't really mean it. It seems to make sense ... until Courtney's husband turns up dead on Christmas Eve. He was poisoned, of course. And who is the number one suspect? Courtney. Of course. But did she actually do it? Or is she being set up? It's up to Charlie to sort through all the twists and turns in a case that gets more complicated the deeper she digs. Meet Charlie. Better known as "Aunt Charlie" from the award-winning Secrets of Redemption series. She's back, making teas and solving cases in this funny, twisty, cozy mystery series set in the 1990s in Redemption, Wisconsin. Each book is a complete story and can be read as a standalone.

Download or read book Mrs Claus and the Santaland Slayings written by Liz Ireland and published by Kensington Cozies. This book was released on 2020-09-29 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Exceptional…the perfect holiday entertainment.”— Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW This Christmas season, travel to the North Pole you’ve never seen before—where Santa’s new wife, April Claus, is not only set on creating the perfect holiday—she’s also set on solving the perfect crime… Love is full of surprises—though few compare to realizing that you’re marrying the real-life Santa. April Claus dearly loves her new husband, Nick, but adjusting to life in the North Pole is not all sugarplums and candy canes. Especially when a cantankerous elf named Giblet Hollyberry is killed—felled by a black widow spider in his stocking—shortly after publicly arguing with Nick. Christmastown is hardly a hotbed of crime, aside from mishaps caused by too much eggnog, but April disagrees with Constable Crinkle’s verdict of accidental death. As April sets out to find the culprit, it’ll mean putting the future of Christmas on the line—and hoping her own name isn’t on a lethal naughty list . . .

Download or read book Gone Before Christmas written by Charles Finch and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Gone Before Christmas, this delightfully absorbing short Christmas story in the bestselling Charles Lenox mystery series, Lenox must find a soldier who ran into a cloakroom for his hat—and never returned. Charles Lenox’s holiday preparations are interrupted when an officer vanishes at Charing Cross Station. Lieutenant Austen, by all accounts an upstanding member of the elite Grenadier Guards, disappears, and his friends, searching the cloakroom of the station where they had been waiting for their trains together, find only a spray of blood on the wall above a scattering of his personal items—his train ticket among them. Scotland Yard is baffled. Has the Lieutenant, who had a hand in intelligence, been kidnapped by French operatives? Or is there some more personal grudge at work? The situation grows graver by the hour, and Lenox knows that he will have to work quickly and brilliantly to have any chance of discovering the missing soldier—and getting home in time for his own Christmas dinner. Includes a sneak peek of The Woman In the Water, a prequel to the Charles Lenox series.

Download or read book Murder in Christmas River written by Meg Muldoon and published by . This book was released on 2012-12-09 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cinnamon Peters is one tough cookie. Every year at Christmas River's annual Gingerbread Junction Competition, pie baker extraordinaire Cinnamon aims to win, taking down any competitor who gets in her way. But when she finds a dead body in the woods behind her pie shop just days before the big competition, Cinnamon realizes that there's much more to worry about than cookies, frosting, and gumdrops. Someone's out to bring Cinnamon down. And they're playing dirty. Only Cinnamon and a mysterious stranger who walks into her life one snowy evening can figure out the mystery. But can they solve it before Cinnamon's chances of gingerbread competition glory crumble? The first book in the beloved best-selling cozy mystery series is full of Christmas spirit, humor, and heart.

Download or read book Murder Most Festive written by Ada Moncrieff and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2021-10-12 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The perfect cozy Christmas murder mystery! Imagine being stuck indoors with your family, waiting for something to happen... and then disaster strikes. Christmas 1938. The Westbury family and assorted friends have gathered together for another legendary Christmas at their Sussex mansion. As family tensions simmer on Christmas Eve, the champagne flows, the silver sparkles and upstairs the bedrooms are made up ready for their occupants. But one bed will lie empty that night... Come Christmas morning, guest David Campbell-Scott is found lying dead in the snow, with only a hunting rifle lying beside him and one set of footprints leading to the body. But something doesn't seem right to amateur sleuth Hugh Gaveston. Campbell-Scott had just returned from the East with untold wealth—why would he kill himself? Hugh sets out to investigate... and what he finds is more shocking than he ever could have expected.

Download or read book The White House Christmas Mystery written by Carole Marsh and published by Gallopade International. This book was released on 2010-01-01 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A surprise Christmas treat of a private tour of the White House soon turns into a harrowing adventure during a blizzard of snow and clues that lead them directly to the Oval Office as four real kids solve a scary, but funny mystery! LOOK what's in this mystery - people, places, history, and more! Purpose and types of Secret Service agents Š Formation of Washington D.C. Š Dolley Madison and the 1814 fire in the White House Š Design and construction of the White House Š Function of the White House today Š President's job description Š Information on the different rooms in the White House Š Glow sticks used by the Marines Š James Madison and James Monroe candlesticks Š White House holiday pageant Š Presidential china Š Situation Room v Dumbwaiter Š Presidential pets Š Code names for the president. Like all of Carole Marsh Mysteries, this mystery incorporates history, geography, culture and cliffhanger chapters that will keep kids begging for more! This mystery includes SAT words, educational facts, fun and humor, built-in book club and activities. Below is the Reading Levels Guide for this book: Grade Levels: 3-6 Accelerated Reader Reading Level: 5.5 Accelerated Reader Points: 3 Accelerated Reader Quiz Number: 74567 Lexile Measure: 790 Fountas & Pinnell Guided Reading Level: Q Developmental Assessment Level: 40

Download or read book Murder for Christmas written by Thomas Godfrey and published by Mysterious Press. This book was released on 1988-12-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A holiday anthology for mystery fans highlights the works of such well-known favorites as Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Stanely Ellin, and Ellery Queen. Reissue.

Download or read book The Christmas Eve Mystery written by Eva Moore and published by Scholastic. This book was released on 2003 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Short stories, poems, and songs for Christmas Eve by David McCord, The Christmas Coat by Clyde Robert Bulla, Christmas Surprises adapted by Melissa Peterson, The Christmas Eve Mystery by Joan Lowery Nixon, On a Pallet of Straw by Langston Hughes, The Carol of the Brown King by Langston Hughes, The Christmas Mouse by Elisabeth Wenning, Silent Night, Giant Grummer's Christmas by William Dana Street, Why Trolls Don't Come to Evergreen Valley on Christmas Eve told by Eva Moore, The Tap-dancingest Tree-trimmingest Christmas Party Ever by6 Susan Sussman, A Visit from St. Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore, A Christmas Song, and A Christmas Prayer by Ada V. Hendricks.

Download or read book Sticker Dollies written by Zanna Davidson and published by Sticker Dollies. This book was released on 2020-12 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Christmas special in the new Sticker Dolly fiction series, inspired by the Sticker Dolly Dressing books. It's Christmas Eve, and the Christmas Dolls get a call from Mission Control - all the presents have been stolen from Santa's workshop, and even worse, one of the elves is missing! Santa is away fetching the reindeer, and the elves don't know what to do. It's now up to the Christmas Dolls, Star, Robin and Clara, to save Christmas. Brand new series fiction for young readers, inspired by the best-selling Sticker Dolly Dressing series. Contains a page of stickers so you can dress the dolls, and illustrations throughout. Exciting adventure story with aspirational, diverse female characters.