More Christmas Mysteries

Christmas is a great time to catch up on your mystery reading. Not only is the weather generally bad but after a hard day of shopping, there is nothing like curling up in your favorite chair and reading a nice book. Whether you like cozies or hard-boiled police detective novels now is a great time to kick back and enjoy your favorite authors or even try a few new ones. Below is a listing of 10 Christmas Mysteries with female detectives you might want to enjoy this holiday season.

1. A Merry Christmas Wedding Mystery, Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery 4 (Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Series) – There’s less than a month to go before Georgie Shaw and Detective Jack Wheeler’s Christmas wedding. With Georgie’s boss “Mad Max” Marley involved, the whole affair becomes much more complicated. Determined to keep the wedding plans from being derailed, Georgie pays Max a visit on the set of Marvelous Marley World’s newest feature film, The Lonely Swan Prince. The sudden disappearance of the movie’s leading lady plunges Georgie and Jack into the middle of a mystery. Where’s the missing diva? If she didn’t vanish on her own accord whodunit and why?

2. Agatha Christie – A Christmas Tragedy: A Miss Marple Story (Miss Marple Mysteries) – At a health resort, Miss Marple becomes suspicious that a man she meets is planning on murdering his wife.

3. Kathi Daley – Christmas Cozy (Zoe Donovan Mystery) (Volume 11) – Christmas in Ashton Falls is always a magical time of year. The first big snow has arrived, the tree in the town square has been decorated, the window displays completed, and Hometown Christmas is just around the corner. Zoe finds herself knee-deep in holiday shopping and Children’s wishes as she and Zak play host to nine-year-old Scooter Sherwood and his friend Alex. Although a bit hectic, the magic of Christmas is in full bloom and things couldn’t be more perfect until Zoe finds the body of history teacher Holly Jolly in the Ashton Falls High School Christmas Tree lot run by best friend Levi Denton and is pulled into a dangerous holiday investigation.

4. Vicki Delany – We Wish You a Murderous Christmas (A Year-Round Christmas Mystery) – It’s Christmastime three hundred sixty-five days a year in Rudolph, New York, and as Christmas Day approaches, shop owner Merry Wilkinson is enjoying a rare evening off at the Yuletide Inn when she runs into owners Grace and Jack Olsen. With Jack’s health failing, Merry is relieved to hear that his son Gord will be taking over the day-to-day running of the Inn. But then Gord reveals that his new plans have no room for Christmas at the Inn, and Merry and the other shopkeepers start to fret about the effect a bland franchise hotel could have on their livelihoods. When Gord is found stabbed to death, there’s an entire town of potential suspects—and it’s up to Merry to find whoever brought homicide home for the holidays

5. Joanne Fluke – Christmas Caramel Murder: A Hannah Swensen Mystery – The holidays have arrived, and Hannah and her good pal Lisa have agreed to provide all the goodies for the town’s annual production of A Christmas Carol. But before anyone can say “Bah, humbug!” a Santa-sized sackful of trouble ensues. Like the fact that Lisa’s husband will be playing Mr. Claus to his ex-girlfriend Phyllis Bates’ Mrs. Claus. Or that before the curtains even go up Phyllis is found dead in the snow—wearing a costume that the real Mrs. Claus would put on the naughty list. Soon after the suspects pile up faster than snowdrifts in a blizzard, while a merry murderer remains on the loose. With clues even harder to find, it might take a visit from ghosts of Christmas past to wrap up this mystery in time for the holidays.

6. Laurell K Hamilton – The Lunatic Cafe (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, Book 4) – The zombie-raising business gets slow in December, so Anita Blake is starting to see some oddball cases. She’s got a neatly typed list of eight missing lycanthropes given to her by Marcus, the leader of the local werewolf pack, who wants her to find them. The trouble is, Anita’s occasionally furry boyfriend Richard is locked in a power struggle with Marcus. Jean-Claude, master vampire of the city and Anita’s other love interest, is getting jealous as well. To top it off, Anita has to solve some horrific murders and keep her bounty-hunting friend Edward from killing Richard and Jean-Claude. Hamilton alternates between funny and fearsome in this larky series about a monster hunter with a few dark secrets.

7. Leslie Meier – Christmas Carol Murder (A Lucy Stone Mystery) – It’s Christmas in Tinker’s Cove, Maine, and Lucy Stone is excited about her acting debut in the town’s production of A Christmas Carol. But a real-life Scrooge has everyone feeling frosty, and with a murderer on the loose, Lucy will have to unwrap her sleuthing skills faster than she can say, “Bah! Humbug!” Lucy normally loves planning for the holidays, but this year, Tinker’s Cove has fallen on hard times. With so many residents struggling to make ends meet, Christmas festivities are a luxury some can’t afford. But the story’s not so bleak at Downeast Mortgage, whose tightfisted owners, Jake Marlowe and Ben Scribner, are raking in profits from everyone’s misfortune. Half the town is in their debt, so when the miserly Marlowe is murdered, the mourners are few and the suspects are many

8. JD Robb – Festive in Death: Lt Eve Dallas Series – Personal trainer Trey Ziegler was in peak physical condition. If you didn’t count the kitchen knife in his well-toned chest. Lieutenant Eve Dallas soon discovers a lineup of women who were loved and left by the narcissistic gym rat. While Dallas sorts through the list of Ziegler’s enemies, she’s also dealing with her Christmas shopping list—plus the guest list for her and her billionaire husband’s upcoming holiday bash. Feeling less than festive, Dallas tries to put aside her distaste for the victim and solve the mystery of his death. There are just a few investigating days left before Christmas, and as New Year’s 2061 approaches, this homicide cop is resolved to stop a cold-blooded killer.

9. Connie Shelton – Sweet Holidays: A Sweet’s Sweets Bakery Mystery (Samantha Sweet Mysteries Book 3) – In this third book in the Samantha Sweet cozy mystery series, it’s Christmas and a quirky Romanian chocolatier shows up at Sweet’s Sweets, offering to create a special line of hand-dipped chocolates for Samantha’s customers. He says he will work for no pay, just to prove himself. But when she learns that he has connections to the wooden box which seems to give Sam her mystical powers, she discovers that certain evil people may do just about anything to take it away from her.

10. Paige Shelton – A Christmas Tartan: A Scottish Bookshop Mini-Mystery (A Scottish Bookshop Mystery) – Christmastime has come to Scotland, and Delaney and all her coworkers at the Cracked Spine, the quirky bookshop in the heart of Edinburgh, are all in the holiday spirit. Between mugs of hot chocolate and nibbles of gingerbread, Delaney has been given the task of tracking down the provenance of a mysterious box of objects that her boss, Edwin, has recently acquired. In it are various trinkets, but what really catches Delaney’s eye is a worn copy of A Christmas Carol, where she also finds an old photo tucked inside. On the back is a name, which leads her to a woman whose granddaughter has gone missing. When it becomes clear that the box might be connected to the missing girl, Delaney is pulled into the intrigue and takes it upon herself to figure out what really happened—and why.