The subtitle for this book of Christmas short stories is "Tales of Yuletide Murder." Based on the cover, you might think the stories are all cozy, but one reviewer of the book described the stories as mostly dark. In the small sample I have read so far, one is on the cozy side, and two are definitely darker. Christmas Stalkings was published in 1991, and all of the stories in the book appeared in print for the first time in this book.
"The Santa Claus Caper" by Bill Crider
Bill Crider is one of my favorite authors. I have read nine books in his Sheriff Dan Rhodes series and I plan to read all of the Dan Rhodes mysteries. Another mystery series by Crider features Carl Burns, a professor of English Literature at a small college in Texas. (Crider was the chairman of the English Department at Alvin Community College in Alvin, Texas.)
"The Santa Claus Caper" introduced me to the characters in the Carl Burns series, including R. M. “Boss” Napier, Chief of the Pecan City, Texas, police. Carl Burns has talked Napier into playing a part in a "reader's theater" version of A Christmas Carol. In turn, Chief Napier wants Burns to go undercover as a department store Santa Claus, because the store was having high losses due to shoplifting. Neither one of them is happy playing their new role.
"Family Christmas" by Patricia Moyes
I like Patricia Moyes' mysteries and I have read all nineteen books in her Inspector Henry Tibbett series. The short story in this book does not feature her series characters.
"Family Christmas" is a clever and poignant story. Robert Runfold and his wife, Mary, live a comfortable life with lots of money. They have two married daughters, who are coming home for Christmas. Robert is curmudgeonly and suspicious. He thinks that both of his daughter's husbands would gladly kill him for the money that their wives would inherit after his death. So he has changed his will so that they will not inherit any money until both daughters are over forty. I had no idea how this story would end.
"Miss Melville Rejoices" by Evelyn E. Smith
Evelyn E. Smith is new to me. Early in her career, she wrote science fiction and fantasy, both short stories and novels. In 1986, she started a five book series featuring Miss Melville, a middle-aged assassin. The story in this book, published in 1991, was her first short story featuring Miss Melville.
This story begins on Christmas Eve, with Miss Melville breaking into the Melville Foundation for Anthropological Research, where later in the evening there would be a party in honor of the deposed dictator of Mazigaziland, the infamous Matthew Zimwi, the man for whom Time magazine had established the category of Monster of the Year. Miss Melville is planning to assassinate Matthew Zimwi during the party. The story is very complicated and I enjoyed the outcome very much.
I will definitely be reading the first novel in the Miss Melville series, Miss Melville Regrets.
Following is a list of the authors and short stories in this book:
- Charlotte MacLeod: Counterfeit Christmas
- Reginald Hill: The Running of the Deer
- Elizabeth Peters: Liz Peters, PI
- Medora Sale: Angels
- John Malcolm: The Only True Unraveller
- Dorothy Cannell: The January Sale Stowaway
- Bill Crider: The Santa Claus Caper
- Patricia Moyes: Family Christmas
- Evelyn E. Smith: Miss Melville Rejoices
- Eric Wright: Two in the Bush
- Mickey Friedman: The Fabulous Nick
- Robert Barnard: A Political Necessity
- Margaret Maron: Fruitcake, Mercy, and Black-Eyed Peas
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