Top 12 Cozy Christmas Mystery Novels

Snowed-in manor houses, village sleuths and a few killers who clearly peaked at the holiday party. Golden Age puzzles sit beside modern cozies, so the argument is as much about tone as plot.

1. 1
   Hercule Poirot's Christmas

   Agatha Christie's 1938 country-house puzzle in which a tyrannical patriarch is murdered in a locked room on Christmas Eve.
2. 2
   Mystery in White

   J. Jefferson Farjeon's 1937 tale of train passengers stranded in a snowstorm who take shelter in an eerie empty house.
3. 3
   The Santa Klaus Murder

   Mavis Doriel Hay's 1936 Golden Age whodunit about a wealthy squire shot at a family Christmas gathering.
4. 4
   The Mistletoe Murder

   P. D. James's collection of festive crime stories, including a Christmas-week killing in a country house.
5. 5
   A Christmas Journey

   Anne Perry's Victorian Christmas novella in which a family gathering turns into a mystery.
6. 6
   Murder for Christmas

   Francis Duncan's 1949 cosy about a Father Christmas stabbed in a country house, featuring amateur sleuth Mordecai Tremaine.
7. 7
   The Twelve Jays of Christmas

   Donna Andrews's Meg Langslow comedy mystery full of holiday chaos, blue jays and an unwelcome corpse.
8. 8
   Mistletoe Murder

   Leslie Meier's first Lucy Stone cozy, set in a small Maine town at Christmas.
9. 9
   The Christmas Appeal

   Janice Hallett's epistolary mystery told in emails and messages around a village charity appeal and a death.
10. 10
    Owl Be Home for Christmas

    Donna Andrews's festive Meg Langslow mystery, where holiday-season chaos in a small Virginia town turns deadly.
11. 11
    Six Geese A-Slaying

    Donna Andrews's Meg Langslow Christmas mystery, set among Virginia holiday festivities and an unexpected murder.
12. 12
    A Christmas Secret

    Anne Perry's Victorian-era Christmas novella, a short seasonal mystery with her trademark period atmosphere.

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