For most people, the holiday season is a time for warmth, cheer, and cozy traditions. But for mystery lovers, the twinkle of tinsel often serves as the perfect, eerie backdrop for a chilling crime.
While holiday music plays and the fire crackles, deadly truths emerge as the snow falls.
Beneath the festive wrapping, secrets fester, grudges boil, and fatal conspiracies wait to be exposed. If your seasonal reading list demands a thrilling edge, one that involves isolated settings and high-stakes puzzles, you’ve come to the right place.
We’ve compiled nine of the best mystery novels set during the most wonderful, and most perilous, time of the year. Get ready to meet a variety of sharp-witted sleuths as they navigate the darkest secrets, scandals, and slayings of the holiday season.
Dive in and unwrap a deadly new world this winter!
Murder at Holly House
A quaint, snowbound Yorkshire village in 1952 is shattered by the discovery of a dead stranger lodged in a chimney. When a second, brutal murder follows, Inspector Frank Grasby realizes the village's deep-buried secrets hide a truth so volatile, its exposure could have a dreadful price for the entire country.
Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife
Six desperate crime writers are lured by a mysterious trust to a remote, snowbound Yorkshire village to compete in a fictional murder game for a massive prize. But when a blizzard cuts them off, the contestants soon discover that the rules—and the victims—might not be as imaginary as they thought.
A Parting Gift
A horrific family massacre in the isolated Scottish Highlands shatters the quiet anticipation of the coming holidays.
When DI Alec McKay rejects the official murder-suicide ruling, his investigation into a web of corruption, missing persons, and eerie, toy-filled packages forces him to confront a painful personal threat hidden just beneath the surface of the winter calm.
Iced
Private Investigator Regan Reilly is looking for romance during a Christmas vacation in snowy Aspen, but her plans are dashed when million-dollar paintings start vanishing.
Convinced her old friend—a charming ex-con—is being framed for the art heist, Regan must navigate ski slopes, holiday hijinks, and mounting danger to wrap up the baffling case before her white Christmas turns into a long winter mystery.
Murder at the Mill
Seeking escape from a crumbling marriage, portrait artist Iris Grey rents a quaint cottage in a picturesque Hampshire village just before Christmas.
But when a body is discovered on Christmas Day following a tension-filled party, Iris is drawn from her easel into a swirling world of village gossip, romantic intrigue, and buried family secrets she must paint into focus to uncover a deadly truth.
Rest You Merry
After years as the campus Christmas Scrooge, professor Peter Shandy finally snaps, installing a million-watt holiday light display calculated to torment his neighbors—then promptly flees town.
But his quick return is spoiled when he finds his garish lights dark, his holiday spirit gone, and a murdered librarian lying in his living room, forcing the reluctant academic-turned-detective to solve a deadly Christmas puzzle.
The Twelve Deaths of Christmas
Christmas cheer is about to turn deadly at Maude Daneson’s bustling rooming house, where the kind landlady is planning a glorious holiday dinner.
But as the festive preparations intensify, the lodgers and their host realize the murderer the police can’t catch is living right under their roof—and is ready to strike again before the Christmas Eve feast.
Tied Up in Tinsel
In 1972, famed portrait painter Agatha Troy attends a grand Christmas house party, only for the festive atmosphere to curdle when a player vanishes during the local holiday pageant.
With a house full of eccentric guests and a staff composed entirely of recent parolees, it falls to the great Inspector Alleyn to unwrap this perplexing disappearance before the killer claims the next victim.
Killer Holiday
Kristin Clark and her eccentric crew are ready for a festive Christmas of yule logs and cabaret—until a menacing Santa appears with a hit list.
When a series of petty crimes escalates to a disappearance and the theft of a Powerball winner's gold bars, it's up to Kristin, her "Killer WASPs" friends, and her basset hound, Waffles, to unmask the holiday menace before their white Christmas turns blood red.
Featured image: Nathan Fertig / Unsplash
