List
We need a little Murder/Right this very minute...
A search for “detective and mystery fiction” related to the major winter holidays brings up more than 250 titles in our catalog (more if you include books for teens and children). Why? Lisa Unger points to our fascination with “the shadow of a beautiful thing, the hidden layers beneath all that glitters and shines.” Tod Goldberg cites the hell-is-other-people aspect: “After eight nights with family, almost any exit seems appealing, even those from this life.” Comedian Benjamin Stevenson (speaking through his alter ego Ernest Cunningham) reminds us that it can be as simple as authors wanting a “little yuletide cash grab,” namechecking the 1893 Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” (see below) as an early example. Here are some of my favorite titles for this time of year.
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Hercule Poirot's Christmas
2021 by Christie, AgathaGet this itemAn “inhuman wail” brings guests rushing to the locked door behind which Simeon Lee has been murdered. Just about everyone Mr. Lee had invited–with cruel intent–to spend the holidays had a motive, but no one had an opportunity. Hercule Poirot finds the clues lying in plain sight in this classic seasonal “fair play” mystery (though a solution dependent on the limitations of 1930's forensics may not occur to 21st century readers).
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A Fatal Grace
2011 by Penny, LouiseGet this itemSomeone went to a lot of trouble to kill CC de Poitiers, electrocuted by an elaborate boobytrap while watching Three Pines’ annual Christmas curling match. A beautiful Li Bien ornament allows Chief Inspector Armand Gamache to connect the unusual murder in bucolic Three Pines to the drearily commonplace one of a woman living on the streets of Montreal. But neither victim was quite who she seemed to be.
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The Latke in the Library
2017 by Astaire, LibiGet this itemMystery writer Agatha Krinsky’s first Chanukah in the Barnet Court retirement community is disrupted by her discovery of “a very dead looking body” in the library. Enter a bevy of sleuths who happen to resemble characters from Agatha CHRISTIE’s fiction (Ms. Eppel knows that there is “much wickedness in a [synagogue] Sisterhood”). The stories that follow feature deaths foretold by dreidel, jewels hidden in a travel menorah, and other Chanukah-themed nods to the great Dame Agatha.
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Eight Very Bad Nights
2024Get this itemIf you like your Hanukkah crime fiction with a harder edge, try this new anthology from editor Tod Goldberg, with offerings by the likes of Ivy Pochoda and Gabino Iglesias. The tone ranges from the gleefully dark (Lee Goldberg’s “If I Were a Rich Man,” Stefanie Leder’s “Not a Dinner Party Person”) to the downright unsettling (Liska Jacobs’ “Dead Weight,” James D.F. Hannah’s very timely “Twenty Centuries”).
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New Year's Eve Murder
2006 by Meier, LeslieGet this itemAmateur sleuth Lucy Stone is worried enough about her daughter Elizabeth’s college expenses that she’s willing to spend the New Year in New York City, trying to win Jolie magazine’s prize for “best mother-daughter makeover team.” With its fish-out-of-water-among-the-fashionistas storyline and wacky plot twists (murder by anthrax compact!) New Year’s Eve Murder feels a bit like a Mystery version of Ugly Betty.
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Blackmail and Bibingka
2022 by Manansala, Mia P.Get this itemLila Macapagal’s Cousin Ronnie is a black sheep made good, returning to Shady Palms, IL, to revive the local winery. The situation turns bad when Ronnie’s mother starts getting blackmail emails, and a whole lot worse when one of his investors dies after drinking tainted lambanog. Of course, Lila isn’t the sort to let saving (yet another) relative from a murder rap make her forget that Simbang Gabi and the Shady Palms Winter Bash are coming up. “There was nothing like rubbing butter into sugar to ground yourself and clear your head.” Recipes included.
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Christmas Presents
2023 by Unger, LisaGet this itemTrue Crime star Harley Granger’s arrival in Little Valley, NY, isn’t well received by those whose lives were changed one Christmas by a monster named Evan Handy. But Madeline Martin fears Granger is right about the evil Handy brought to Little Valley not being over–she's received an anonymous “present” every Christmas since. And now, another young woman is missing. Centering on female characters who refuse to be passive victims, Lisa Unger’s thriller also has a lot of interesting information about the logistics and ethics (or lack thereof) of making a true crime podcast.
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A Christmas Vanishing
2023 by Perry, AnneGet this itemMariah Ellison is not a sweet old lady. Much like the reformed Scrooge, she’s trying to prove that “a life can be made right” while still slightly stunned by any human kindness. Can she solve a mystery whose stakes are nothing less than the soul of the village of St. Helens? Could her own future hold something more than regret? The Christmas-themed novellas Anne Perry released annually for the last 21 years of her life were a minor part of her vast historical mystery output; nevertheless, this elegiac title seems a fitting swan song.
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Mystery in White
2016 by Farjeon, J. JeffersonGet this itemThis one has an interesting pedigree. Originally published in 1937, it became a surprise UK bestseller when British Library Crime Classics reissued it in 2014. On Christmas Eve, six strangers walk away from a snowbound train and find themselves in a seemingly empty house where something very bad has happened. But was the danger waiting, or did it arrive with them? Reminiscent of the movies Alfred Hitchcock was making at that point in his career.
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Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret
2024 by Stevenson, BenjaminGet this itemErnest Cunningham spends a sweltering Australian Christmas at the Pearse Theater, trying to prove his ex didn’t murder her new boyfriend (he’s sure she’s innocent; otherwise, she would have found a way to look less guilty). This means he’s watching when illusionist Rylan Blaze somehow loses his real head to a fake guillotine. And what’s up with the Secret Santa gifts? “Fair play” mystery obsessive that he is, Ernest repeatedly tells the reader what clues will be important, going so far as to arrange them in a “Advent calendar” for us to refer to. Like any good magician, he knows it won’t matter.
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The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
2017 by Doyle, Arthur ConanGet this item"I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the compliments of the season..." This short story (and its many adaptations) sometimes receives the alternate title “The Christmas Goose”; the various geese Holmes and Watson wind up tracing across London are certainly more memorable than the diamond MacGuffin one of them swallowed. Collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
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The Coming of Mr. Quin
2013 by Christie, AgathaGet this itemAfter midnight on New Year’s Day, a man who calls himself Harley Quin talks his way into a country house party. Like someone “giving the actors their cues,” Mr. Quin subtly redirects the conversation to the death of the house’s previous owner–an event that many of those now present seem to have knowledge of... Collected in The Mysterious Mr. Quin.
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