Mysterious Christmas Tales

Not all tales, told around the fireside at Christmas, have festive endings. Does the jovial figure of Father Christmas hide a more sinister aspect? Are you sure it's only the wind in the trees that you can hear screaming outside? This collection offers nine mysterious tales.

The Mystery of Christmas is a collection of inspirational historical, contemporary, and speculative Christmas short stories.

Another festive edition to the Tales of the Weird series, following on from Spirits of the Season and Chill Tidings. A unique selection ranging from the spooky haunted houses of Victorian Christmastime to experimental twentieth-century horrors. It offers a truly international scope of stories, from the pine forests of Canada to the peaks of the Alps. Like any other boy I expected ghost stories at Christmas, that was the time for them. What I had not expected, and now feared, was that such things should actually become real. Strange things happen on the dark wintry nights of December. Welcome to a new collection of haunting Christmas tales, ranging from traditional Victorian chillers to weird and uncanny episodes by twentieth-century horror masters including Daphne du Maurier and Robert Aickman. Lurking in the blizzard are menacing cat spirits, vengeful trees, malignant forces on the mountainside and a skater skirting the line between the mortal and spiritual realms. Wrap up warm - and prepare for the longest nights of all.

Morse had solved so many mysteries in his life. Was he now, he wondered, beginning to glimpse the solution to the greatest mystery of them all . . . ? How can the discovery of a short story by a beautiful Oxford graduate lead Chief Inspector Morse to her murderer? What awaits Morse and Lewis in Room 231 of the Randolph Hotel? Why does a theft at Christmas lead the detective to look upon the festive season with uncharacteristic goodwill? And what happens when Morse himself falls victim to a brilliantly executed crime? Morse's Greatest Mystery and Other Stories is a dazzling collection of short stories from Inspector Morse's creator, Colin Dexter. It includes six ingenious cases for the world's most popular fictional detective – plus five other tantalizingly original tales to delight all lovers of classic crime fiction.

In the corner of a dusty old bookstore, Joachim discovers a magic advent calendar. When he opens the first window on December first, a small piece of paper falls out, containing the story of a little girl named Elisabet. Using his historical insight and beautiful imagination, Jostein Gaarder has created a unique and exciting holiday story for the whole family. Beautifully illustrated, The Christmas Mystery will make a wonderful permanent addition to the literature of Christmas.

The Edgar Award-winning editor collects sixty of his all-time favorite holiday crime stories—from Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Hardy, to Sara Paretsky and Ed McBain. • “Anyone who cares about the best mystery writing of the past century and beyond would be lucky to receive this thick volume during the holidays." —The Washington Post This collection touches on all aspects of the holiday season, and all types of mysteries. They are suspenseful, funny, frightening, and poignant. Included are puzzles by Mary Higgins Clark, Isaac Asimov, and Ngaio Marsh; uncanny tales in the tradition of A Christmas Carol by Peter Lovesey and Max Allan Collins; O. Henry-like stories by Stanley Ellin and Joseph Shearing, stories by pulp icons John D. MacDonald and Damon Runyon; comic gems from Donald E. Westlake and John Mortimer; and many, many more. Almost any kind of mystery you’re in the mood for--suspense, pure detection, humor, cozy, private eye, or police procedural—can be found in these pages. FEATURING: - Unscrupulous Santas - Crimes of Christmases Past and Present - Festive felonies - Deadly puddings - Misdemeanors under the mistletoe - Christmas cases for classic characters including Sherlock Holmes, Brother Cadfael, Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Ellery Queen, Rumpole of the Bailey, Inspector Morse, Inspector Ghote, A.J. Raffles, and Nero Wolfe.

It's Christmas Eve and a group of friends have gathered around the fireside in a remote cottage. A hushed anticipation falls over the group as, safe inside where surely nothing can harm them, they begin to tell eerie stories of restless spirits eternally condemned to walk the earth.

Eleven classic whodunits starring master sleuths such as Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, and Father Brown. A superstar lineup of detectives—including Sherlock Holmes, C. Auguste Dupin, and Hercule Poirot—headlines this elegant leather-bound edition of classic mystery stories. Short stories such as Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” and G. K. Chesterton’s “The Blue Cross” are ideal for a cozy evening by the fire, while novels like Agatha Christie’s The Murder on the Links and Jules Verne’s An Antarctic Mystery will keep you engrossed for days. The eleven works in this volume are preceded by a scholarly introduction that explores the origins of the genre, as well as the development of the modern mystery story and the contributions made by each author. Works Included Short stories: "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," Edgar Allan Poe "The Adventure of the Creeping Man," Sir Arthur Conan Doyle "The Blue Cross," G. K. Chesterton "The Coin of Dionysius," Ernest Bramah "The Anthropologist at Large," R. Austin Freeman "The Most Dangerous Game," Richard Connell Novels: The Murder on the Links, Agatha Christie Whose Body?, Dorothy Sayers The Thirty-nine Steps, John Buchan An Antarctic Mystery, Jules Verne Room 13, Edgar Wallace