This is a fun collection of twelve Christmastime stories written for the Mysterious Bookshop in NYC. The requirements to be included in the collection are as follows: be set at Christmastime, involve a crime of some kind, or the suspicion of one, and be set at least partially in the Mysterious Bookshop.
I had a great time listening to this audiobook and was pleased to discover several new to me authors that I will have fun exploring in the future. I had already read books by Laura Lippman, Tom Mead, Jeffrey Deaver and Rob Hart, so I was also happy to have authors known to me included.
I had a very hard time choosing which story was my favorite – it came down to a four way tie between Wolf Trap, Hester’s Gift, Sargent Santa and Here We Come A-Wassailing.
This would be a great collection to re-read each holiday season to get you in the mood for a trip to NYC, stopping by The Mysterious Bookshop, and solving mysteries there. I really liked it when a fictional version of Otto Penzler was included in the stories.
Here is a list of the stories and their authors:
1. Black Christmas by Jason Starr
2. A midnight clear by Lyndsay Faye
3. Wolf Trap by Loren D Estleman
4. Secret Santa by Ace Atkins
5. The gift of the Wise Guy by Rob Hart
6. Snowflake Time by Laura Lippman
7. The Christmas Party by Jeffrey Deaver
8. Here We Come A-Wassailing by Thomas Perry
9. A Christmas Puzzle by Ragnar Jónasson
10. Hester’s Gift by Tom Mead
11. Sargent Santa by David Gordon
12. End Game by Martin Edwards
The narrators (Jennifer Pickens and Graham Rawat) did a great job too.
Special thanks to Netgalley and RBMedia for a copy of the audiobook in exchange for my honest opinion.
Publication Date 10/22/24
Holly Reads Too Much 