While you're sitting around in a food coma, unable to move due to the extra ten pounds you just put on, why not pick up a mystery with a Thanksgiving theme? You can gather together the clan and ask the designated reader (the one who is still half-awake) to read aloud, maybe start a new family tradition. So here's the list:
William Bernhardt, editor, Natural Suspect. An oil tycoon turns up dead on Thanksgiving Day. A round-robin thriller written by Leslie Glass, Gini Hartzmark, John Katzenbach, John Lescroart, Bonnie MacDougal, Phillip Margolin, Brad Meltzer, Michael Palmer, Lisa Scottoline and Laurence Shames
Carole Bugge, Who Killed Mona Lisa? A 2001 classic whodunit set in a historic New England inn over Thanksgiving
Kate Borden, Death of a Turkey. As tourists arrive at Cobb's Landing to enjoy an authentic, colonial-style Thanksgiving, Mayor Peggy Turner would be thankful for nothing more than a clue as to who killed her neighbor.
Mary Daheim, Fowl Prey. A 1991 cozy set in Vancouver, where bed-and-breakfast hostess Judith McMonigle has headed for a pre-Thanksgiving getaway
Jeanne M. Dams, Sins Out of School. Agatha-winner Dams's seventh mystery. A traditional American Thanksgiving dinner unexpectedly leads Dorothy Martin, now nearly 70 and settled in the medieval town of Sherebury with her retired police constable husband, Alan Nesbit, into a murder case.
Claire Daniels, Final Intuition. A 2006 cozy wherein a Thanksgiving holiday ends badly when ailing Aunt Daphne is poisoned during the turkey dinner
Katherine V. Forrest, The Beverly Malibu. LAPD homicide detective Kate Delafield investigates the Thanksgiving Day murder by strychnine poisoning of a retired movie director.
Chris Grabenstein, Hell for the Holidays. This brand-new book (October 2007) is Grabenstein's second holiday thriller featuring FBI agent Christopher Miller and sidekick Lieutenant Cimino, which includes terrorists planning an attack on Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
Jane Haddam, Feast of Murder. Armenian-American and former FBI agent Gregor Demarkian spends Thanksgiving aboard a personal replica of the Mayflower.
Lee Harris, Thanksgiving Day Murder. This 1995 cozy surrounds the Thanksgiving disappearance of the beautiful, young wife of a wealthy man.
Robin Hathaway, Doctor Makes a Dollhouse Call. Physician detective, Dr. Andrew Fenimore has to solve a Thanksgiving Day puzzle featuring a dollhouse and a murder.
Richard Hawke, Speak of the Devil. A debut PI novel/thriller with a shooting spree during Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade
J. A. Jance, Shoot Don't Shoot. Joanne Brady lands in Phoenix for a pre-Thanksgiving crash course in police training and in the middle of the mystery of an imprisoned husband.
Harry Kemelman, The Day the Rabbi Left Town. Rabbi David Small steps in after a fierce Thanksgiving storm delivers up a corpse in a snowbank.
Clyde Linsley, Death of a Mill Girl. The plot of this mystery, set in mid-19th century New England, centers around Thanksgiving, but also takes a harsh view of the conditions of New England fabric mills of the day.
Georgette Livingston, The Telltale Turkey Caper. This 1996 book is the fifth in a series of cozies featuring veterinarian Jennifer Gray.
Margaret Maron, Up Jumps the Devil. North Carolina judge Deobrah Knott embarks on a Thanksgiving Day investigation into the murder of a man from her father's moonshine-making past.
Ralph McInerney, Celt and Pepper. The action of this mystery novel takes place at Notre Dame over the Thanksgiving holiday.
Leslie Meier, Turkey Day Murder. This 2002 novel is one of Meier's many holiday-themed mysteries featuring amateur sleuth Lucy Stone.
Ann Ripley, Harvest of Murder. Garden show host Louise Eldridge's Thanksgiving plans are interrupted by a brutal murder in her own backyard.
Sarah R. Shaber, Snipe Hunt. A Thanksgiving vacation on a small island off the North Carolina coast turns up a WWII mystery.
Angela Zeman, The Witch and the Borscht Pearl. A comedianne's attempt to make a comeback via a live Thanksgiving Day national TV special leads to murder.
I'd like to send you a copy of my newest thriller: HELL FOR THE HOLIDAYS. It starts on Halloween and ends on Thanksgiving -- at the Macy's parade.
Posted by: Chris Grabenstein | November 22, 2007 at 01:49 PM