The Usual Santas

**Eighteen delightful holiday short stories by some of your favorite Soho Crime authors!** ** ** This captivating collection—which features bestselling, and award-winning authors—contains laughs aplenty, the most hardboiled of holiday noir, and heartwarming reminders of the spirit of the season. Nine mall Santas must find the imposter among them. An elderly lady seeks peace from her murderously loud neighbors at Christmastime. A young woman receives a mysterious invitation to Christmas dinner with a stranger. Niccolò Machiavelli sets out to save an Italian city. Sherlock Holmes’s one-time nemesis Irene Adler finds herself in an unexpected tangle in Paris while on a routine espionage assignment. Jane Austen searches for the Dowager Duchess of Wilborough’s stolen diamonds. And other adventures that will whisk readers away to Christmases around the globe, from a Korean War POW camp to a Copenhagen refugee squat to the streets of Thailand. CONTENT An Elderly Lady Seeks Peace at Christmastime by Helene Tursten The Usual Santas by Mick Herron PX Christmas by Martin Limón Chalee’s Nativity by Timothy Hallinan The Cuban Marquise’s Jewels by Teresa Dovalpage A Mother’s Curse by Mette Ivie Harrison There’s Only One Father Christmas, Right? by Colin Cotterill Martin by Ed Lin Queen of the Hill by Stuart Neville Blue Memories Start Calling by Tod Goldberg Bo Sau (Vengeance) by Henry Chang Red Christmas by James R. Benn When the Time Comes by Lene Kaaberbol & Agnete Friis Hairpin Holiday by Sujata Massey The Prince (of Peace) by Gary Corby Cabaret aux Assassins by Cara Black Jane and the Midnight Clear by Stephanie Barron Supper with Miss Shivers by Peter Lovesey