XMAS MARKS THE PLOT Twelve Christmas mysteries — gift wrapped in entertainment and suspense — ready to take home for the holidays in this delightful collection selected from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine and Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion, British detective extraordinaire, solves a country killing in which delivering a Christmas card was simply murder. Rex Stout sends a crotchety patrolman out to investigate a yuletide jewel theft on Manhattan’s mean streets. John D. MacDonald leaves us a secretary’s corpse on Christmas Street along with a cop’s clever ruse to catch her killer. And Santa Claus himself hitches up a sleighload of chills in stories by...

A great holiday gift for mystery fans, this new short story collection of over thirty Christmas tales of crime contains contributions from some of the best writers of the genre: Patricia Moyes, John D. MacDonald, Rex Stout, Julian Symons, Georges Simenon, Margery Allingham, Lawrence Block, John Mortimer and many others. These holiday tales with a murderous twist include suspicious Santa's helpers; a Christmas pageant player who assumes the role of a killer; and evil elves with malicious intentions. Beware of hanging mistletoe and stuffed stockingsthisseason, as you celebrate a creepy Christmas withMurder Most Merry.