Contents

Three weeks before Christmas, Lester Manning is found bludgeoned to death inside his study, a room locked from the inside. Just because the only way out seems to have been the chimney, that doesn't make Santa Claus a suspect, does it?

A man with a gun bursts into a classroom.

Military veteran Charlie Reardon, homeless and hopeless, has decided crime might be his only way out of poverty--until a mysterious stranger offers him advice. The new plan still involves a crime, but in a way that will change his life forever.

Former teacher Roy Talman finally lands a new job, as a department store Santa Claus. But when a seven-year-old boy confesses that he murdered the girl next door, Roy is compelled to discover the truth...no matter where it leads.

A streetwise thirteen-year-old girl becomes a gambling debt enforcer in an attempt to keep her struggling family afloat.

When a small-town harpy returns a pair of gnomes her husband used to commit suicide in his backyard pool to their place on the lawn, pathologist's assistant Tamsin Bruce suspects murder. No one listens until it's (almost) too late.

A young girl witnesses a murder that could change her life, and her family's fortunes, forever. All she has to do is trust the killer.

A mild-mannered bank clerk meets his true love and gets involved in a life of crime.