Christmas Magic Inspires Classic Mystery Writers

It's almost Christmas, and, for mystery lovers, that means a slew of seasonal mysteries. Besides all the "cozy" murder tales rife with small-town festivities and pie recipes, the holiday has inspired some classic mystery authors. For example, Agatha Christie penned Hercule Poirot's Christmas: The Belgian detective, spending Christmas with a friend in an English village, offers to help the Lee family solve the bloody murder of a tyrannical patriarch at their holiday family reunion. Christie also wrote The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding, a gathering of short mysteries featuring Poirot and her other beloved sleuth Miss Marple. If Christie doesn't satisfy your thirst for British Yuletide mayhem, you can curl up with Silent Nights: Christmas Mysteries, a short-story collection of vintage British mystery writers' holiday-themed tales. For a more recent holiday mystery offering, read New York Times bestselling author Anne Perry. Perry writes a Christmas-themed mystery each year, and this year's 13th seasonal tale is A Christmas Escape: On the Mediterranean island of Stromboli, protagonist Charles Latterly arrives at a small hotel hoping that the island’s blue skies will brighten his spirits. Although orphaned teenager Candace Finbar helps introduce lonely Charles to the island's beauty, his fellow guests turn out to be unhappy, quarrelsome, suspicious company. As the local volcano stirs ominously, a body is found, and Charles suspects a killer among the other guests. Now, for those readers who want to focus on the mystery of Christmas without the murder, check out this list of the 50 best Christmas books for adults or kids, ranging from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi, and Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory, all the way to Dr. Seuss's How the Grinch Stole Christmas: http://www.stylist.co.uk/books/50-best-christmas-books