3.5
Mistletoe Mysteries
ByPublisher Description
Peace on Earth isn't everyone's cup of tea in Charlotte MacLeod's "A Cozy for Christmas."
Peter Lovesey's "The Haunted Crescent" delivers a holiday ghost story with a twist.
A training session for department-store Santas turns up Saint Nicks who are anything but angels in Isaac Asimov's "Ho, Ho, Ho."
Marcia Muller's "Silent Night" finds a tough private investigator searching San Francisco's Tenderloin district—and discovering something unexpected.
A long-married couple's ship finally comes in—only to spring a mysterious leak—in Mary Higgins Clark's "That's the Ticket."
Scottish superstition catches up with a cat burglar in Sharyn McCrumb's "A Wee Doch and Doris."
These and many more stories will keep you turning pages and gathering evidence of yuletide mayhem. So when holiday shopping brings out your inner Grinch, hunker down with a hot toddy—and leave the murder to the experts.
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communitiesMistletoe Mysteries Reviews
3.5
“Fun quick holiday themed mysteries. I did like that there were many to choose from in different styles. When one didn't appeal to me, I could just skip over to the next one. Perfect for when you don't have much extra time for reading around the holidays, but still would like to get some in!”
About Charlotte MacLeod
Charlotte MacLeod (1922–2005) was an international bestselling author of cozy mysteries. Born in Canada, she moved to Boston as a child and lived in New England most of her life. After graduating from college, she made a career in advertising, writing copy for the Stop & Shop Supermarket Company before moving on to Boston firm N. H. Miller & Co., where she rose to the rank of vice president. In her spare time, MacLeod wrote short stories, and in 1964 published her first novel, a children’s book called
In
(1978), MacLeod introduced Professor Peter Shandy, a horticulturist and amateur sleuth whose adventures she would chronicle for two decades.
(1979) marked the first appearance of her other best-known characters: the husband and wife sleuthing team Sarah Kelling and Max Bittersohn, whom she followed until her last novel,
, in 1998.
Other books by Charlotte MacLeod
John Lutz
For over forty years, John Lutz (b. 1939) has been one of the premier voices in contemporary hard-boiled fiction, producing dozens of novels and over 250 short stories. His earliest success came with the Alo Nudger series, set in his hometown of St. Louis.
introduced Fred Carver, a Florida detective whom Lutz followed in ten novels. More recently, he has produced five books in the Frank Quinn serial killer series. Lutz is a former president of the Mystery Writers of America, and his many honors include lifetime achievement awards from the Short Mystery Fiction Society and the Private Eye Writers of America. He lives in St. Louis.
Other books by John Lutz
Susan Dunlap
Susan Dunlap (b. 1943) is a prolific author of mystery novels. Born in the suburbs of New York, Dunlap majored in English at Bucknell College and earned a masters in teaching from the University of North Carolina. She was a social worker before an Agatha Christie novel inspired her to try her hand writing mysteries. Five attempts and five years later, she published
(1981), which began a ten book series about brash Berkeley cop Jill Smith.
Since then, Dunlap has published more than twenty novels and numerous short stories. Her other ongoing characters include the meter-reading detective Vejay Haskell, medical examiner Kiernan O’Shaugnessy, and Zen student turned detective Darcy Loft. In addition to writing, Dunlap has taught yoga, worked as a paralegal, and helped found the women’s mystery organization Sisters In Crime. She lives in San Francisco.
Other books by Susan Dunlap
Edward D. Hoch
Edward D. Hoch (1930–2008) was a master of the mystery short story. Born in Rochester, New York, he sold his first story, “The Village of the Dead,” to
, then one of the last remaining old-time pulps. The tale introduced Simon Ark, a two-thousand-year-old Coptic priest who became one of Hoch’s many series characters. Others included small-town doctor Sam Hawthorne, police detective Captain Leopold, and Revolutionary War secret agent Alexander Swift. By rotating through his stable of characters, most of whom aged with time, Hoch was able to achieve extreme productivity, selling stories to
,
, and
, which published a story of his in every issue from 1973 until his death.
In all, Hoch wrote nearly one thousand short tales, making him one of the most prolific story writers of the twentieth century. He was awarded the 1968 Edgar Award for “The Oblong Room,” and in 2001 became the first short story writer to be named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.
Other books by Edward D. Hoch
Dorothy Salisbury Davis
Dorothy Salisbury Davis is a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and a recipient of lifetime achievement awards from Bouchercon and Malice Domestic. The author of seventeen crime novels, including the Mrs. Norris Mysteries and the Julie Hayes Mysteries; three historical novels; and numerous short stories; she has served as president of the Mystery Writers of America and is a founder of Sisters in Crime.
Born in Chicago in 1916, she grew up on farms in Wisconsin and Illinois and graduated from college into the Great Depression. She found employment as a magic-show promoter, which took her to small towns all over the country, and subsequently worked on the WPA Writers Project in advertising and industrial relations. During World War II, she directed the benefits program of a major meatpacking company for its more than eighty thousand employees in military service. She was married for forty-seven years to the late Harry Davis, an actor, with whom she traveled abroad extensively. She currently lives in Palisades, New York.
Other books by Dorothy Salisbury Davis
Bill Pronzini
's novel
received the Grand Prix de la Littérature Policière as the best crime novel published in France in 1988.
was nominated for best crime novel of 1997 by both the Mystery Writers of America and the International Crime Writers Association. In addition to six Edgar Award nominations and one win for
, Pronzini has received three Shamus Awards, two for best novel and the Lifetime Achievement Award. He is also the author of the Nameless Detective novels, the longest-running private investigator series currently in print, which includes the award-winning entries
and
. He lives in northern California with his wife, the crime novelist Marcia Muller.
Other books by Bill Pronzini
Aaron Elkins
Aaron Elkins is a former anthropologist and professor who has been writing mysteries and thrillers since 1982. His major continuing series features forensic anthropologist‑detective Gideon Oliver, “the Skeleton Detective.” There are fifteen published titles to date in the series. The Gideon Oliver books have been (roughly) translated into a major ABC‑TV series and have been selections of the Book‑of‑the‑Month Club, the Literary Guild, and the Readers Digest Condensed Mystery Series. His work has been published in a dozen languages.
Mr. Elkins won the 1988 Edgar Award for best mystery of the year for
, the fourth book in the Gideon Oliver Series. He and his cowriter and wife, Charlotte, also won an Agatha Award, and he has also won a Nero Wolfe Award. Mr. Elkins lives on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula with Charlotte.
Other books by Aaron Elkins
Isaac Asimov
Isaac Asimov was a Russian‑born American writer and the author of nearly five hundred books. He is credited as one of the finest writers of science fiction in the twentieth century. Many, however, believe Asimov’s greatest talent was for, as he called it, “translating” science, making it understandable and interesting for the average reader.
Other books by Isaac Asimov
Howard Engel
Howard Engel (1931–2019) was born in St. Catharines, Ontario. He was a producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation before emerging as a prolific, award-winning, and much-loved mystery writer, best known for the Benny Cooperman detective novels. After suffering a stroke, Engel developed alexia sine agraphia in 2000, a condition that prevented him from reading without great effort. This, however, did not inhibit his ability to write, and he later penned a memoir about the experience and his recovery called
. Engel was a founder of Crime Writers of Canada, and in 2014, he was the recipient of the organization’s first Grand Master Award. He passed away in 2019 at the age of eighty-eight.
Other books by Howard Engel
Sharyn McCrumb
SHARYN MCCRUMB is the author of
bestselling
and many other acclaimed novels. Her books have been named Notable Books of the Year by
and the
. She lives and writes in the Virginia Blue Ridge, less than a hundred miles from where her family settled in 1790 in the Smoky Mountains that divide North Carolina and Tennessee.
Other books by Sharyn McCrumb
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