Miss Winter in the Library with a Knife
by Martin Edwards

Who doesn’t love a murder mystery at Christmas?

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED to an all-expenses-paid Christmas holiday at Midwinter, a remote hamlet in the North Pennines in Yorkshire, England, to play a murder mystery game. Joining you are a has-been mystery author infamous for copycatting the classics, an out of work publicist, a disgraced influencer whose off-the-record remarks have come back to bite her, a true crime podcaster who’s been sued for every penny, a former hotshot literary agent who’s been sued for sexual harassment, and a publisher who used AI to plagiarize bestsellers—and was sued by Netflix. Oddly, the contestants also share a lack of any next-of-kin who might notice or care if they disappear. But no matter! There are cash prizes for all who see the game through to the end, and of course a high-stakes Grand Prize for the winner that no one is allowed to discuss. But it’s promised to be life-altering. And then one by one, people start dying…

Snowed in with no way to leave, the game turns suddenly very real, and the players realize they must figure out what happened here five years ago when another guest died under mysterious circumstances if they are to have any hope of surviving the game.