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

Holidays & Mysteries Reveal Family Dysfunction

It's the holiday season, and families gather to celebrate, tolerate or denigrate as the case may be. If your family has its share of dysfunction, it may be time to gain perspective via mysteries with dysfunctional families at their core. For example, check out A Banquet of Consequences, this year's new Inspector Lynley mystery by Edgar Award-winning Elizabeth George. At the center of a family's deadly web sits mother Caroline Goldacre, a pathological liar who has damaged her sons, driven one husband away, made her incumbent partner miserable, and is now blamed for a troubled son's suicide by his girlfriend, whom mom blames in turn. When someone is poisoned, is monster Caroline also a murderer or, as she claims, the intended victim? Either scenario makes sense with this mom from hell! For a lighter take, read The Spellman Files, the first novel of Lisa Lutz's humorous mystery series featuring Isabel "Izzy" Spellman. Izzy works for her dysfunctional, though snoopily competent, family in their private investigation firm. The Spellmans are so addicted to detecting that they spend their off hours investigating each other--tailing, wiretapping and backmailing family. When Izzy's parents hire her 14-year-old sister to trail her and find out about her love life, Izzy decides it's time to quit. But she has to finish one last job, a missing person cold case that turns into the most important case of her life. For a classic psychological thriller, turn to the 1986 Edgar Award winning A Dark Adapted Eye by Ruth Rendell, writing as Barbara Vine. Narrator Faith Severn recalls a 30-year-old tragedy involving her dominating, possessive aunt, Vera Hillyard, who initially seeks to control her beautiful younger sister Eden to the neglect of son Frances, and then abandons focus on Eden to dote on younger son James, who may or may not be illegitimate. When Eden marries but cannot have children, she demands custody of James, claiming he is mistreated by Vera. The two sisters become embroiled in a custody battle that ends in violence and disturbing revelations. Or maybe you just want to escape with a comforting, seasonal "cozy" mystery instead: http://cozy-mysteries-unlimited.com/thanksgiving-list