16 Mysteries for the Holidays
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By Jen Collins Moore, Tina deBellgarde, Carol Pouliot, and Lida Sideris
We love a great read around the holidays. This month we are delighted to share some of our favorite seasonal reads.
1) Rhys Bowen’s The Twelve Clues of Christmas (A Royal Spyness Mystery) - Jen says: I adore The Royal Spyness series and was charmed by this installment following Lady Georgianna, the impoverished royal thirty-fifth in line for the throne in 1930s England. There’s a house party in the English countryside, dead bodies, and suspects galore, all written in Bowen’s deceptively light and laugh-out-loud style.
2) Martha Grimes’s Jerusalem Inn - Carol says: One of the many things my mother and I shared was a love of Martha Grimes’s Richard Jury mysteries, and reading Jerusalem Inn became a Christmas tradition for us. All of Grimes’s signature elements are present in this holiday story: precocious children, a mysterious cat named Sorcerer, Sergeant Wiggins with his cornucopia of remedies, Aunt Agatha with her interfering ways, and a cast of characters that enchant. As always, Jury’s sidekick, the charming and highly intelligent Melrose Plant, comes to the rescue when he masquerades as a librarian, infiltrating an isolated estate in the Yorkshire Moors and helping Jury solve a murder.
3) Janet Evanovich’s Visions of Sugar Plums: A Stephanie Plum Holiday Novel - Lida says: This is an unnumbered Stephanie Plum novella (only 150 pages) that introduces Stephanie’s bounty hunter-slash-partner, Diesel, who has supernatural powers. If you like the usual goofy characters and crazy situations mixed with a little holiday spirit, you’ll enjoy this shorter-than-usual read featuring the comical antics expected in the series. A very lightweight, fast read when a quick escape is needed.
4) Louise Penny’s A Fatal Grace - Tina says: I love how all of Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache books have a wonderful sense of place and community, but my favorites are the winter ones set in Three Pines. It is the dead of winter when we feel most vulnerable, and it is when friendships and camaraderie make the most difference. This is book 2 in the series, and if you are willing to read out of order, a great place to start. It’s a story that once again delves into relationships and mis-guided intentions. This murder plot is more bizarre than most and gives you a sense of how setting plays such a big role in Penny’s books. The murder takes place on a frozen lake and the victim is electrocuted while watching a curling match.Three Pines may seem too idyllic and unrealistic to some readers, but I have been privileged to live in more than one community of this type. Reading a Louise Penny book reminds me what a blessing our chosen families can be.
5) P.D. James’s “The Murder of Santa Claus" story in Sleep No More: Six Murderous Tales - Jen says: Most mystery fans are familiar with P.D. James’s reputation as the writer whose literary style transformed the mystery genre. What many might not know is that she was a master of short stories, too. Her “The Murder of Santa Claus" story is a holiday gem not to be missed.
6) Carolyn Hart’s Sugarplum Dead - Carol says: Sugarplum Dead is light reading, perfect for the busy holiday season. Annie Darling, proprietor of the mystery bookstore Death on Demand loves Christmas. As the holiday approaches, Annie excitedly prepares to celebrate. The festivities are put on hold when Annie and her husband, Max, attend a party at the home of a former movie star, where murder is on the menu. If you ever dreamed of owning a bookstore, reading this series is like living vicariously as Annie decorates her shop with fun, book-related merchandise and sponsors contests featuring paintings that represent mystery picks of the month. There are recommendations of mystery titles throughout the book—no less than six by the end of the prologue!
7) Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot’s Christmas: A Hercule Poirot Mystery, #20 - Lida says: I haven’t read a Hercule Poirot mystery in a very long time, but I really enjoyed this one. It’s three days before Christmas and we meet two very different, very intriguing passengers aboard a London train. A deftly written opening, I immediately wanted to know how the two were connected. It turns out they share a reason for visiting a very wealthy, older gentleman who soon meets his end in a locked room, no less, with everyone present harboring a grudge against him. A clever read with red herrings galore.
8) Louise Penny’s How the Light Gets In - Tina says: Did I mention how much I love Louise Penny’s winter books? This is another one that I enjoy reading curled up by the fire. It is the 9th book in the series, and the sub-plots have started to get darker and more complex (and more satisfying as a result). This book wraps up many of the unresolved sub-plot threads of earlier books. Inspector Gamache returns to Three Pines to help find a missing person. This case is an opportunity for him to escape the city and some of his problems, but the stakes are high when Penny shows us a Three Pines in danger of being absorbed by the evils of the outside world. This book can be read as a stand alone, but in my opinion, this particular book in the series benefits from being read in its proper sequence.
9) Lindsey Davis’s Saturnalia (Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries) - Jen says: This mystery is set during the ancient Roman holiday of Saturnalia, the mid-December festival that is the source of many of the traditions we associate with Christmas, including wreaths, candles, feasting, and winter gift-giving. I love the way Davis brings ancient Rome to life through the eyes of her detective Marcus Didius Falco, and this book is a perfect escape for mystery fans at this time of year.
10) Deborah Crombie’s Water Like a Stone - Carol says: Detective Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Sergeant Gemma James, formerly only work partners, are now romantic partners as well, about to spend their first family Christmas with their two sons at his parents’ home in Nantwich, Cheshire, a market town brimming with historic buildings. Shortly after their arrival, Duncan’s sister finds a body buried in the wall of an old barn that she’s renovating. So much for traditional carols and egg nog! Duncan and Gemma are on the case with an old friend of his, now a cop with the local force. The past is never far from the present in this, the 11th book in the series. A bonus for readers is an intimate look at the fascinating lifestyle on a narrow boat on the canals in Britain.
11) Donna Andrews’s The Twelve Jays of Christmas: A Meg Langslow Mystery, #30 - Lida says: A holiday celebration can be stressful, especially when planning a wedding and a blizzard strikes… and when a house guest is murdered. Andrews creates a wonderfully intriguing plot in this fun and entertaining cozy mystery. Now I have to read the other books in the series.
12) Sarah Osborne’s Flo and Maude Christmas Capers (Flo and Maude Christmas Cozies) - Tina says: What a fun romp this book is! Every Christmas season, Sarah Osborne puts out a collection of short stories based on this quirky team. Flo is cantankerous and Maude is sweet, and they are octogenarians who run The Old Dames Protection Agency along with their young sidekick, Kate. These stories will keep you smiling as they hop around the country getting into, and then out of, scrapes. This is a book that is perfect for the busy holiday season, when a short story might be all you can squeeze into your schedule.
13) Alan Bradley’s I Am Half-Sick of Shadows (Flavia de Luce Book 4) - Jen says: If you haven’t discovered the Flavia de Luce series yet, you’re in for a treat. Flavia is the eleven-year old narrator of Alan Bradley’s multi-award winning series who is super smart, razor-tongued, and bold. Make no mistake, these are books for adults, and in this installment death follows when Flavia’s down-at-the-heels aristocratic English family rents their crumbling mansion to an American film crew at Christmas. It’s cleverly plotted, funny, and heart-breakingly poignant as Flavia straddles the line between maturity and innocence.
14) Agatha Christie’s short story “The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding”/”The Theft of the Royal Ruby” - Carol says: Reading this story and watching the TV version, adapted by Anthony Horowitz and starring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, is the first thing I do every year when I begin getting ready for Christmas. It has all the elements of a cozy English Christmas in the country. Poirot is ready with his holiday plans—his demi-kilo of handmade chocolates, his central heating, his books—when the Foreign Office persuades him to investigate the theft of a ruby owned by an Egyptian prince. Poirot travels to the country home of Colonel Lacey, an avid Egyptologist, where English holiday traditions and clever impersonations abound. A very satisfying mystery enjoyed with a cup of tea or hot toddy. Cheers!
15) Joanna Fluke’s Christmas Cake Murder: A Hannah Swensen Mystery, #23 - Lida says: For fans of the series, this is a prequel. Hannah hasn’t yet opened her popular small-town bakery, The Cookie Jar. That’s what drew me in, but this is not quite like Fluke’s other books in the series. Hannah and her mother (recently widowed) recreate a Christmas Ball for an elderly, much-loved resident, and a long-ago murder mystery is discovered. It was fun to go back and watch how the bakery came to be and revisit favorite characters.
16) Silent Nights: A Collection of Christmas Mysteries edited by Martin Edwards - Tina says: Once again, Martin Edwards curates a wonderful selection of Golden Age Christmas stories. From Margery Allingham to Dorothy Sayers, you will find some real gems in this collection. The different styles are brief dips into some of our traditional favorites. Again, I find short stories the perfect read at the busy holiday season. This collection will not disappoint with quirky characters, fun puzzles, and Golden Age sensibilities. An added bonus for me was being introduced to some more obscure authors.
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