December 2022 MysteryKIT - Holiday Mysteries

It's that time of year--time to break out the Holiday Mysteries. So regardless of the Holidays you celebrate, enjoy your time reading them!

A few Christmas ideas:

           

           

           

           

           

There are many, many more. This is just a brief sampling of options.

If you know of Kwanzaa or Hanukkah mysteries, please suggest them.

We're open to all holidays--regardless of time of year, so here are a few additional ideas.

           

           

Have to paw through my mystery stacks. If only I had that Scooby Doo!

I love the covers you included! Lots of good ideas here, and I have some of these novels on my shelves! I also would like to have that Scooby Doo!

Try this for a fun and easy read: Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric Kimmel.

>1 thornton37814: What lovely covers!

I have a few to choose from:

Hercule Poirot's Christmas by Agatha Christie
An English Murder by Cyril Hare
Portrait of a Murderer - A Christmas Crime Story by Anne Meredith
Murder for Christmas by Francis Duncan

I'm going to be reading Christmas Caramel Murder by Joanne Fluke for the Random Kit and think I'll do a two-fer and count it here too.

>2 mstrust: >3 LadyoftheLodge: I just stumbled across that Scooby Doo and knew I had to include it! I want it also.

>4 MissBrangwen: There are so many great classic Christmas mysteries. I'm glad you included the Francis Duncan one here because I would have included it if I'd done another row. I didn't even think about the Cyril Hare one because it omitted a holiday word in the title.

>5 dudes22: There were so many options for Fluke, Levine, Meier, and Andrews. The Flukes are my favorites from the ones packaged as a trio. I had a hard time choosing which Andrews to post.

I may read The Healer by Antti Tuomainen, which takes place over the two or three days before Christmas, though I'm not sure whether Christmas is actually a theme

I will likely read The Hunting Party / Lucy Foley. It has a few "Christmas" tags, though it's apparently actually set at a party on Dec. 30. Close enough, I think. :-)

I have a couple of books set aside for this MysteryKit. The Crime At Noah's Ark by Molly Thynne and Crimson Snow a book of short stories edited by Martin Edwards.

I didn't think I had anything on my shelf that would work here but this afternoon I was walking past my bookcases and my eye caught Silent Night, Deadly Night. By Vicki Delany, it's a perfect fit but it hadn't been added to my LT catalog! I wish that wouldn't happen!

Halloween Party by Dame Agatha is another Hercule Poirot with a holiday theme.

>7 Robertgreaves: >8 LibraryCin: >9 DeltaQueen50: >10 clue: >11 LadyoftheLodge: I'm glad everyone is finding things to read!

Anne Perry also has released her annual Christmas offering A Christmas Deliverance which I just finished. It is worth a read.

I just picked up an Anne Perry Christmas book at the library. I've never read her and this was what was available. A Christmas Gathering. So I'll do my best to get to it in December.

>14 beebeereads: I hope you enjoy it. I liked all the Anne Perry Christmas novels so far.

I've chosen Murder at an Irish Christmas.

>16 mstrust: Excellent choice! I enjoyed that one.

Good to hear, thanks!

>1 thornton37814: Wonderful introduction!

I'm planning We wish you a murderous Christmas by Vicki Delany and The last day of Christmas by Christopher Brookmyre.

My first holiday mystery is Elvis and the Blue Christmas Corpse by Peggy Webb. I hope to read at least 2 more.

My library book came in quickly, so I started and finished Christmas Caramel Murder by Joanne Fluke for this.

>21 dudes22: I am interested in how you like this one. I broke up with Joanne Fluke a few years ago when her novels did not seem to be going anywhere and had way too much detail on how do bake and all kinds of minutiae (even though the recipes were included).

>22 LadyoftheLodge: - I actually gave up after #4. A little too cozy for me. But since she has a couple of books that fit this challenge, I figured it was a quick, easy way to fill this challenge. I only gave it a 3* which seems to be the average.

I finished Silent Night, Deadly Night by Vicki Delany. It actually starts before Thanksgiving and ended with the Christmas parade. The protagonist owns a Christmas themed retail store so there was a Christmas atmosphere
throughout.

I read Six Geese A-Slaying by Donna Andrews

I read The Christmas Tree Murders by Andrea Hicks.

I have read Twisted Tea Christmas by Laura Childs.

I have bought and read in a single sitting Maroni, Mord und Hallelujah which has four stories set around Christmas in Salzburg. As usual with regional mysteries, we learn something about the place, in this case the customs of the Twelve Nights, called Rauhnächte in German. They are quite scary!

Today I read The Mistletoe murder and Other Stories by P. D. James, four short Christmas murder mysteries. I personally enjoy Ms. James nonfiction writing better than her fiction. I found these mysteries to be unmemorable.

>29 sallylou61: Apart from history of detective fiction, the name of which I've forgotten, I didn't know P. D. James had written any non fiction.

>30 Robertgreaves: Talking about Detective Fiction is the book I enjoyed. I have not read all that much be Ms. James, but have not particularly enjoyed her mysteries.

I have completed Crimson Snow an anthology of eleven British vintage crime stories, most of them set during the festive season. Although I enjoyed some of the stories at little more than others, I thought all of the stories were good and very atmospheric.

I started The Mousse Wonderful Time of Year by H. Y. Hanna last night. After I'd read about one chapter, a hold from the library came in--Slashing Through the Snow by Jacqueline Frost. I have a couple others on hold through the libraries that were probably higher priorities--and I have a few on my Kindle app besides the Hanna one. I don't know how many I'll get around to reading, but I'm trying to set aside a little time each evening to make progress.

January MysteryKIT is up.
https://www.librarything.com/topic/346532#n8000746

Secret Sins by Kate Charles takes place during Advent and the run-up to Christmas is played out in the background rather than being a focus of the book.

The Crime at Noah's Ark by Molly Thynne is a vintage British mystery that is set in an old country inn during the Christmas season with a group of people who have a murder and a theft to deal with as well as being snowed in.

I finished The Mousse Wonderful Time of Year by H. Y. Hanna. It's the tenth in the Oxford Tearoom series. I'd read no other installments. The cozy sleuth caters an event at an English country house. Everyone gets snowed in. The owner's son and heir is murdered. I think you really need to read the previous installments because I didn't feel the cozy sleuth or the "Old Biddies" who assist her were well-developed in this installment. I did love her cat Muesli though!

The Hunting Party / Lucy Foley
4 stars

Emma has arranged for a get together of (mostly) university friends over New Year’s Eve in a remote area of Scotland. Emma didn’t actually know this group of friends in university, but she has been dating one of them for three years. Although they only get together every New Year’s, she still feels a bit like an outsider. The beautiful Miranda is married to Julien; Mark (Emma’s boyfriend) always had a crush on Miranda; Katie is Miranda’s best friend – or was when they were students. There is a gay couple and one couple with a new baby. Heather and Doug are not part of the group of friends, but work at the lodge the friends are staying at; they both have their own reasons for wanting to work somewhere so very isolated and remote. As a blizzard arrives, trapping them in place with no way in or out, one of the guests (friends) has disappeared.

The story took a bit of time to build. It was told from a few different points of view, including Emma, Katie, Miranda, Heather, and Doug. The atmosphere – the remoteness, the loneliness, the cold of the place – was done really well. The reader is not told who is the missing guest until a ways into the story. I have to say none of the characters was particularly likable. It was a good buildup to the finale, and hard to tell who the culprit was, as it could have been just about anyone.

I've read The Twelve Clues of Christmas, a Royal Spyness mystery, by Rhys Bowen. There were too many unexplained deaths with very little progress in solving them until the end for my taste.

I finished Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon, which is a classic English country house mystery, featuring a mixed group of people who find themselves snowed in, with a killer on the loose.

I also finished Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen by Vicki Delany, the first in her Year-Round Christmas series (which seems to be a popular choice in this thread). It was enjoyable enough, but I like her Smith and Winters series much better.

I'm reading When Elves Attack by Tim Dorsey. "A wonderfully deranged serial killer" sounds like an entertaining Christmas read.

In the set-at-Christmas (but really not about the holiday) sub-sub-genre, I read Hidden in Snow by Viveca Sten.

I read The Christmas Egg by Mary Kelly, a vintage mystery involving murder and the theft of a Fabergé egg. Good writing style and characterization, but there wasn't much mystery to the plot.

We Wish you a Murderous Christmas by Vicki Delany
A very entertaining cozy Christmas mystery set in the town of Rudolph, NY, a town devoted to Christmas.

I finished Murder at the Christmas Cookie Bake-Off by Darci Hannah. I still need to review it. I also abandoned one book by Valerie Wolzien that fit the category. I might finish an audio book today as I drive from my brother's house to Florence, Alabama and back.

I finished the audio of Slashing through the Snow by Jacqueline Frost. Still need to review it.

The Last Day of Christmas: the fall of Jack Parlabane a novella by Christopher Brookmyre
A good example of how Jack Parlabane can entice even with a short story. Jack is hoping for a real news story instead of editing wire stories to fit the style of his current employer. And then he gets an opportunity he can't ignore.

>45 thornton37814: & >46 thornton37814: They both look good! Slashing through the Snow author's name is very appropriate!

>48 VivienneR: I'm sure it's a pseudonym, but it's a Christmas series.

>45 thornton37814: I downloaded that one onto my Kindle app because the author is originally from Indiana and lives in Michigan. That caught my interest right away.

>50 LadyoftheLodge: I read the first one and thought the series had promise. I think I liked this one a little better than the first.