The Christmas Murder Mystery / Gifts Group Read!

Welcome to the third edition of the Christmas Murder Mystery thread. If you’d like a break from the holiday grind, stop by this thread and rest a while with a possibly hilariously titled Christmas mystery.

Here are a few books participants read last year, with one extra thrown in because I found it and it had a great title:



Death at Sandringham House, by CC Benison
The Twelve Clues of Christmas, by Rhys Bowen
Mystery in White, by J. Jefferson Farjeon
The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir, by Ken Harmon
A Bitter Truth, by Charles Todd
Sugar Cookie Murder, by Joanne Fluke
Do Not Murder Before Christmas, by Jack Iams

Want more ideas? Here are some sources:

The 2014 and 2013 threads:
2014 http://www.librarything.com/topic/183070
2013 http://www.librarything.com/topic/161380

The Christmas mystery section of Cozy-mystery.com (link provided by lindapanzo):
http://www.cozy-mystery.com/Holiday-Mystery-Books/Christmas-Mystery-Book-List.ht....

The LibraryThing tagmash for Christmas mysteries:
http://www.librarything.com/tag/Christmas,+mystery

But we’re not just about Christmas mysteries here on the Christmas mystery group read! Do you have Christmas gifts from LAST year (or even several years ago...) that remain unread? Now’s your opportunity to put a dent in them before you get another batch this year. (And this includes books you bought with Christmas gift cards.)

I will be reading Ten Lords A-Leaping, by CC Benison, a mystery featuring Father Tom Christmas. It was also a Christmas gift from 2013. I am not the most timely about reading my books...

I'm planning to read Frost at Christmas by R. D. Wingfield.

I have the following on my shelves. I plan to read a few of them, maybe all if I'm lucky.

The Santa Klaus murder by Mavis Doriel Hay
The Virago book of Christmas
Christmas at Fairacre by Miss Read
Whiteout by Ken Follett
Merry Merry Ghost by Carolyn Hart
Christmas in Cornwall by Marcia Willett
An Irish Country Christmas by Patrick Taylor

Also found a sale-priced copy of Nigella Christmas : food, family, friends, festivities by Nigella Lawson that should get me in the Christmas cooking mood.

I believe I took a BB from whomever read Mystery In White by J. Jefferson Farjeon last year, and now, I am going to be reading it this year. Also I am finally going to be reading The Mischief of the Mistletoe by Lauren Willig which has been on my shelves for a few years.

I'm planning to read An English Murder by Cyril Hare, which takes place at Christmas.

Not sure how many I'll get to read, but I've set aside some Christmas books (although not all mysteries) for December. I've set aside:

Twelve Drummers Drumming by C.C. Benison
A Christmas Guest by Anne Perry
The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd
The Handmaid and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg
Comfort and Joy by Kristin Hannah

If I get through those and my CAT books, I'll see what else is on the TBR.

I'm planning to read Not a Creature Was Stirring by Jane Haddam.

Frost at Christmas isn't currently available at my library, so I might go for Jo Nesbo's The Redeemer instead. Inspector Harry Hole celebrating the Christmas season should be an interesting experience.

Yay! Thank you for hosting this RP! I have some books lined up at home but I am out of town at the moment so I will post them early next week.

>9 mathgirl40: I knew I should have read The Devil's Star already! Then I could read The Redeemer with you. I can only imagine Christmas with Harry.

>9 mathgirl40: - I have a few to go before I get to The Redeemer so that will have to wait for Christmas future.

I forgot to mention that I'll be listening to The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth on Christmas Eve. I have an audiobook version as well as a CBC podcast of the reading, a Christmas Eve tradition at CBC.

Called in at the library and picked up The Greek who stole Christmas by Antony Horowitz, The Cinderella Killer by Simon Brett and Present Darkness by Malla Nunn. I doubt I'll be able to read them all in the next month but I'll give it a good try.

>10 luvamystery65: >11 dudes22: I'd finished The Devil's Star quite recently and liked it very much. I was going to take a break from Harry Hole's relentlessly bleak world, but when I found out that The Redeemer fits the Christmas theme, I had to slot it in for December.

Besides two other books I'm reading Das große Buch der skandinavischen Weihnachtsgeschichten, a book with short Scandinavian winter mysteries by authors such as Henning Mankell, Liza Marklund and others. And I'll read Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch by Michael Ende - a book for children, that takes place around Christmas and New Year's Eve. I'll probably finish this one with a (hopefully only little) hangover on January 1, as I have done many years...

I just realized that you have Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon on your topper. This is one of the two books I picked up last month for this read. I started it today.

>15 luvamystery65: I'm going to be readubg Mystery in White as well Ro, I will probably start it as soon as I finish one of my current reads.

Yay! I stumbled onto a link for this in a discussion on the 75 challenge -- I had missed this.

I'm currently reading Hell for the Holidays by Chris Grabenstein. I recently finished Wreck the Halls by Sarah Graves.

I just started Away in a Manger by Rhys Bowen and suspect I may reread Charlotte MacLeod's Rest You Merry before the month is up.

Reading Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed by Mignon Ballard, an Augusta Goodnight mystery.

Question about reading Christmas gifts from previous years. Do they have to be books that I got from someone as a present, or can they be ones I bought over the holidays with the gift cards and/or money I got for Christmas?

>20 tymfos: Both are allowed! Gift cards and money you receive from others is other people's money, so they are technically buying you the book ;)

Total coincidence: I purchased a lovely copy of Mystery in White last week and will try to get to it before the holidays are over.

I just stumbled on the book Voices by Arlandur Indridason, which begins with the murder of a hotel Santa Claus under unsavory circumstances. (Not-so-merry Christmas!)

Also, I recently read Past Reason Hated by Peter Robinson, which involved another Christmastime murder.

There's no murder, but there's a thimbleful of a mystery in The Walnut Tree by Charles Todd. A lovely little tale that takes place at the beginning of WWI.

I enjoyed Mystery in White by J. Jefferson Farjeon. I will have to look for more books by him.

>24 dudes22: I've just started the audio of The Walnut Tree!

I love seeing what everyone's been reading! I just finished my selection, Ten Lords a-Leaping by CC Benison... it was overstuffed and could have done with an editor. But at least I've finally read it after it's been sitting on the shelf for almost two years.

I read Christmas Bells by Jennifer Chiaverini. It was very good with chapters alternating between a contemporary storyline and an historical storyline.

For those of you who enjoyed Mystery in White, here are a few other titles you might like:

http://www.deadgoodbooks.co.uk/classic-christmas-crime/

>25 luvamystery65: I ordered Mystery in White by Farjeon and although I won't have it for this Christmas, it will be one to look forward to next year - or sooner!

>29 rabbitprincess: Thanks for that link.

I'm currently enjoying Crime at Christmas by C.H.B. Kitchin that dates from the 30s as far as I remember. I love those old mysteries. Years ago I found Death of My Aunt by the same author in a university library and I've been looking for more ever since.

I finished The Redeemer by Jo Nesbo and An English Murder by Cyril Hare, two very different Christmas mysteries! Nesbo's is quite dark, while Hare's is a traditional country-house cozy mystery. Both were very good.

I've enjoyed following this thread and am getting some ideas for next Christmas!

I just finished a really dark mystery set in Iceland. Voices by Arlandur Indridason begins with the murder of a hotel Santa -- caught dead with his pants down. It was dreary, but dealt with some complex issues of family relationships, survivor's guilt, and more.

In a lighter vein, I'm now reading Six Geese a Slaying by Donna Andrews. It has a Santa as the murder victim, too -- in this case, the curmudgeon who plays Santa in the local holiday parade -- but is a totally different type of mystery.

>31 mathgirl40: I read An English Murder as well and quite liked it! The solution to the mystery, revealing why it's a uniquely "English" murder, really tickled me!