Ghosts, murders, bizarre disappearances and journeys back through time, every conceivable type of mystery can be found within the pages of Mystery for Christmas, but with one thing in common: they all take place during the short days and dark nights, the festivities and tensions of Christmas time.

Writers have long been inspired by this season of peace and goodwill to tell tales of murder, mystery and the supernatural, and the stories in this collection range from work by classic nineteenth-century writers such as Charles Dickens and Thomas Hardy to popular contemporary writers like Muriel Spark and H.R.F. Keating. Several of the stories have been written especially for this volume.

Mysteries can take many different forms as the stories in this intriguing collection prove. There are seasonal crime mysteries: an apparently impossible murder at a family gathering; a homicidal Santa Claus; and a chilling case of mistaken identity in Victorian London. There are some atmospheric encounters with the supernatural: some nightmarish, as in the murdered husband who returns to confront his murderer; others less frightening than bewildering or even amusing. And as Christmas, a festival around which traditions abound, can also be a time at which the past seems particularly close. Mystery for Christmas includes stories in which the past becomes indistinct from the present, and in one case threatens to take over the present.