Crime & Christmas Fa La La La

by Donna Huber

For a long time I thought Christmas stories were only romances, but in 2017 I read a Christmas thriller and it changed everything. Now I seek out other crime fiction Christmas stories. I always have a few cozy mystery series that have a Christmas book, but I particularly like Christmas suspense and thrillers. This year I've read a few so if you also want a thrill along with your Merry & Bright check out these books.

Need more recommendations? Check out all the books featured during the 25 Days of Christmas Reading.

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Triple Cross Killer by Rosemarie Aquilina

Have you ever wondered what really happens to Santa Claus letters? In Detroit and Sarasota some children's letters are diverted and reviewed by Nick Archer, a religiously obsessed, narcissist. Nick responds, leaving a trail of devastation in the two cities.

In Detroit, co-ed partners and wise-cracking lovers, detectives Jaq McSween and David Maxwell, team up with Sarasota detectives Abel Mendoza and his partner, Rabbit, to find this daunting killer.

When Jaq's friend, the lovely nurse, Rita Rose, takes a chance on love again, she gets caught in Nick's web. Working with the ME, she joins in, adding her perspective when events take a sinister turn.

Can this diverse team of characters pool their insights, barbs, and taste for bad food to save Rita when she discovers the final clues or will she become the next victim? (Goodreads)

This is the book that started my journey into Christmas crime fiction. It's a great book if you haven't read it. Read my review.

Buy Triple Cross Killer at Amazon

(If you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can read it for free)

The Christmas Jigsaw Murders by Alexandra Benedict

On 1st of December, renowned puzzle setter, loner and Christmas sceptic Carla Murphy finds a hand-delivered present on her doorstep. Unwrapping it, she finds a jigsaw box with a question mark on the lid, 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. On the back of the pieces is a message: ‘His death takes place on the solstice, unless you can put together the pieces,’ along with a clue to the location of more pieces.

When the police say there isn’t anything to investigate, Carla teams up with her Christmas-loving nephew, PC Simon Reynard, to solve the clues, find the jigsaw pieces and prevent the murder. Each set of jigsaw pieces leads to the next, but the more Carla finds, the more she discovers that the mystery is far more connected to her past than it first appeared, and to a Christmas mystery she’s being trying to forget for a very long time.

Only by fitting all the pieces together will Carla find the peace and goodwill she’s secretly always been looking for. (Goodreads)

This book balances well the Christmas spirit with the grim reality of a murder mystery. I listened to the audiobook, so if you are tired of Christmas music you should try this mystery. Read my review.

Buy The Christmas Jigsaw Murders at Amazon

Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop edited by Otto Penzler

Thirteen festive crime stories set in New York City’s beloved mystery bookstore

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 and never published elsewhere, 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. 

The prompt for the story requires three that it be set at Christmastime, that it involve a crime of some kind, or the suspicion of one, and that it be set at least partially in the bookstore. And from these loose structural guidelines, diverse tales took flight. 

The thirteen tales included in this volume are among the finest to be produced in this annual tradition, sure to charm any reader looking for a holiday-themed escape.Included herein are the ingenious “Snowflake Time” by Laura Lippman; Lyndsay Faye’s tale of vengeance “A Midnight Clear”; the challenging brainteaser, “A Christmas Puzzle,” by Ragnar Jónasson; “Hester’s Gift,” an impossible crime story by Tom Mead; the suspenseful “The Christmas Party” by Jeffery Deaver; Thomas Perry’s hilarious comedy of errors, “Here We Come A-Wassailing;” and other tales appropriate for the season, collected and introduced by Otto Penzler. The result is, objectively speaking, the finest “stocking stuffer” that a mystery fan could hope to find. (Goodreads)

If short stories are all you have time for right now, this is a great collection to pick up. Read my review.

Buy Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop at Amazon

Death Comes at Christmas edited by Marie O'Regan and Paul Kane

The award-winning Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane invite you to a festive gathering of bestselling, critically acclaimed and award-winning writers in tribute to classic, British period crime stories. From locked room mysteries on Christmas eve to devilish whodunits and tales of simmering rivalries unfolding at the dinner table, these thirteen original seasonal tales will delight and shock at every twist and turn. So, unwrap the presents, pour a mug of mulled wine and follow the bloodstained footprints through the freshly fallen snow as winter descends and darkness lurks in the shadows.

Featuring stories by: Fiona Cummins, Angela Clarke, A.K. Benedict, Susi Holliday, J.T. Ellison, David Bell, Sarah Hilary, Claire McGowan, Tina Baker, Sam Carrington, Liz Mistry, C.L. Taylor, Helen Fields, Russ Thomas, Tom Mead, Vaseem Khan, Samantha Hayes & Belinda Bauer (Goodreads)

MK reviewed this anthology a couple of months ago. She called it "a great collection" and I have it on my reading list for this month. I'm looking forward to it.

Buy Death Comes at Christmas at Amazon

The Christmas Guest by Peter Swanson

An American art student in London is invited to join a classmate for the holidays at Starvewood Hall, her family's Cotswold manor house. But behind the holly and pine boughs, secrets are about to unravel, revealing this seemingly charming English village's grim history.

Ashley Smith, an American art student in London for her junior year, was planning on spending Christmas alone, but a last-minute invitation from fellow student Emma Chapman brings her to Starvewood Hall, country residence of the Chapman family. The Cotswold manor house, festooned in pine boughs and crammed with guests for Christmas week, is a dream come true for Ashley. She is mesmerized by the cozy, firelit house, the large family, and the charming village of Clevemoor, but also by Adam Chapman, Emma's aloof and handsome brother.

But Adam is being investigated by the local police over the recent brutal slaying of a girl from the village, and there is a mysterious stranger who haunts the woodland path between Starvewood Hall and the local pub. Ashley begins to wonder what kind of story she is actually inhabiting. Is she in a grand romance? A gothic tale? Or has she wandered into something far more sinister and terrifying than she'd ever imagined?

Over thirty years later the events of that horrific week are revisited, along with a diary from that time. What began in a small English village in 1989 reaches its ghostly conclusion in modern-day New York, many Christmas seasons later. (Goodreads)

I hope my hold at the library for the audiobook comes in before Christmas. I'm number 30 but it is only a 3 hour story.

Buy The Christmas Guest at Amazon

(If you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber, you can read the ebook for free)

Donna Huber is an avid reader and natural encourager. She is the founder of Girl Who Reads and the author of how-to marketing book Secrets to a Successful Blog Tour.

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