Murder, Mayhem and Mistletoe

Terence Faherty, Aileen Schumacher, Wendi W. Lee, Bill Crider

Worldwide, 2001 - Fiction - 378 pages

This book includes four mysteries regarding crimes at Christmas from four popular mystery writers. Mystery # 1:The Headless Magi in which Terence Faherty's metaphysical sleuth, Owen Keane, is working at a crisis phone line in New Jersey, where several alarming calls from a young boy coincide with vandalism at a local Nativity scene, bringing a thought-provoking mystery home for the holidays. Mystery # 2: Christmas Cache in which Aileen Schumacher's New Mexico engineer and amateur sleuth, Tory Travers, agrees to let her teenage son house-sit at the local university's experimental solar-heated home and ends up with a challenging Christmas puzzle - a mysterious shooting, a backyard full of buried cash, and original paintrings even she can recognize. Mystery #3: Stocking Stuffer by Wendi Lee's whose Boston P.I., Angela Matelli, who is doing undercover security work during the holiday shopping rush, struggles to clear a woman accused of killing her ex-husband in a mystery filled with enough bizarre twists for an unexpected unwrapping of a Christmas killer. Mystery #4: The Empty Manger in which Bill Crider's sheriff, Dan Rhodes, has his hands full with a "living" manger scene downtown when the body of the local councilwoman is found nearby. Rhodes has a suspect list as long as a string of Christmas lights --but it's old-fashioned horse sesnse that leads to a surprises killer

Contents

• THE HEADLESS MAGI: 9
• CHRISTMAS CACHE: 97
• STOCKING STUFFER: 201

About the author

Bill Crider was born in Mexia, Texas on July 28, 1941. He received a M.A. from the University of North Texas and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. He taught English at Howard Payne University for twelve years and then became the chair of the division of English and fine arts at Alvin Community College. He retired in August 2002 to become a full-time writer. He wrote several mystery series including the Truman Smith series, the Sheriff Dan Rhodes series, the Carl Burns series, the Sally Good series, and the Stanley Waters series, which he co-authored with Willard Scott. He also contributed to three books in the Stone: M.I.A. Hunter series under the pseudonym Jack Buchanan. His standalone novels included The Texas Capitol Murders and Blood Marks. He also wrote five children's books. Too Late to Die won an Anthony Award for best first mystery novel in 1986. He died from cancer on February 12, 2018 at the age of 76.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Murder, Mayhem and Mistletoe
• Authors: Terence Faherty, Aileen Schumacher, Wendi W. Lee, Bill Crider
• Publisher: Worldwide, 2001
• ISBN: 0373264011, 9780373264018
• Length: 378 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Mystery & Detective / General; Fiction / Romance / General