Thursday, December 17: Femme Fatale
Our Christmas Contest continues—check it out here.
CHRISTMAS MYSTERIES
by Deborah Elliott-Upton
Reading specific stories at this time of year has become tradition in many homes. We know the one about Scrooge and the three visiting ghosts, the reindeer Santa depends on most, and my favorite about our how just being here touches many others. But do you have a favorite Christmas mystery?
My search for gifts begins at the book store, and maybe as you’re probing for the perfect gift for someone, you just might find something extraordinary to be a present of your own, too.
You might justify picking up one of these mysteries to make your own gift as being just the thing the recipient wants most. (Or as a reward for fighting those pesky crowds.)
- The Gift of Murder is an assortment of nineteen authors’ writing of crime combined with Christmas, Kwanzaa, or Chanukah. The proceeds benefit Toys for Tots. Don’t forget “An Unexpected Gift,” written by moi as a contender for one your future favorites. This is not an ordinary Christmas story and neither are my characters. If you’re a nonconformist in your reading choices, this may be for you. If not, there are eighteen other stories vying for your attention. This one has something for everyone.
- Murder for Christmas was written by masters of mystery and contains stories by Dorothy Sayers, Georges Simenon, Rex Stout, and 23 others.
- The Christmas Night Murder is the story of Father Hudson McCormick, who never arrives on Christmas night. This is a Christine Bennett Mystery (ex-nun and expert amateur detective) and fifth in the Edgar-nominated series.
- Hard Christmas by Barbara D’Amato brings her investigative reporter to Michigan for a feature on harvesting of Christmas trees. The story soon turns to an exposé of murder.
- Death at Sandringham House by C. C. Benison features Her Majesty the Queen investigating a Boxing Day murder aided by her maid, Jane Bee.
Know another mystery we might enjoy? Share! That’s the best part of this time of year—and it’s not a mystery why.
Well, stuff my seamed stockings! I’ve never read any of those!
Velma, dear, any of these books will make you far more merry than you are now. Being a reader is a major turn-on. Can I get an Amen?
Amen
Velma-you’re stockings are already stuffed
and I 2nd the amen.
My favorite short-story ever is Margery Allingham’s “On Christmas Day In The Morning.” Steven Saylor’s “Theft of the Saturnalia Silver” is a Christmas mystery set before the birth of Christ! After the holidays when my bankbook settles down I’ll be ordering “The Gift of Murder,” but have you read Dickens’ book “The Haunted Man and the Ghost’s Bargain”? It is not as well known today. (Personal fess-up: I’ve only started reading it…)
Good recommendations. Christie’s HERCULE POIROT’S CHRISTMAS is another good one, though the book is not as Christmassy as the TV adaptation. Reluctant as I am to self-publicize, my own latest novel, PROBABLE CLAUS (Five Star), is a comic Christmas courtroom mystery in which a town’s unofficial Santa Claus goes on trial for murder. It’s a satirical novel but not really cynical about Christmas.