Ten top murder mysteries that take place during Christmas

Amy Pershing, who spent every summer of her childhood on Cape Cod, was an editor, a restaurant reviewer and a journalist before sitting down to write the Cape Cod Foodie Mystery series, including A Side of Murder — which Elizabeth Gilbert called “the freshest, funniest mystery I have ever read” — and An Eggnog to Die For — which Kirkus Reviews gave a starred review, saying, "A delightful sleuth, a complex mystery, and lovingly described cuisine: a winner for both foodies and mystery mavens."

At CrimeReads Pershing tagged ten "stylish, well written and cleverly plotted" murder mysteries that take place during Christmas, including:

Red Christmas by Reginald Hill

“I’m not going to be shot in a wheelbarrow, for the sake of appearances, to pleases anybody.” Mr. Samuel Pickwick

In this Dickens-inspired whodunit (which includes lovely chapter-headings from Dickens himself), the author of the Dalziel and Pascoe mysteries, Reginald Hill, takes us to Dingley Dell, a secluded hotel in the English countryside where the guests have been promised a “Dickensian Christmas.”

In this stand-alone novel, Miss Arabella Allen, “possessed of all the knowing cynicism of a twenty-three-year-old English virgin,” (it’s 1972, people) finds herself snowbound with a rather odd assortment of fellow hotel guests—and a frozen corpse. As the temperatures drop and the body count rises, the clever and resourceful Arabella takes it upon herself to investigate this increasingly deadly silent night.

Verdict: A thrilling (spies!) “Dickensian” mystery.

Read about the other entries on the list.

--Marshal Zeringue