Valentine's Day Mysteries

Here's another holiday mystery list for one of my favorite holidays, Valentine's Day. Enjoy! Eat lots of chocolate!

Valentine's Day Mysteries

Love Lies Bleeding by Susan Wittig Albert
The Broken Hearts Club by Ethan Black
Claws and Effect by Rita Mae Brown
How To Murder The Man Of Your Dreams by Dorothy Cannell
Red Roses for a Dead Trucker by Anna Ashwood Collins
A Catered Valentine's Day by Isis Crawford
Hard Feelings by Barbara D’Amato
A Catered Valentine’s Day by Diane Mott Davidson
Love With The Proper Killer by Rose Deshaw
The Saint Valentine's Day Murders by Ruth Dudley Edwards
Plum Lovin’ by Janet Evanovich
Happy Valentine’s Day by Michelle Fitzpatrick
The Living Daylights by Ian Fleming
St. Valentine's Night by Andrew M. Greeley
Caveman's Valentine by George Dawes Green
Bleeding Hearts by Jane Haddam
The Valentine's Day Murder by Lee Harris
Deadly Valentine by Carolyn G. Hart
Sugar and Spite by G.A. McKevett
The Valentine Victim by Dougal McLeish
Valentine Murder by Leslie Meier
Love You to Death by Grant Michaels
Cat Playing Cupid by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
The Body in the Attic by Katherine Hall Page
A Judgment in Stone by Ruth Rendell
Valentine by Tom Savage
Murder of a Pink Elephant by Denise Swanson
Daughter Of The Stars by Phyllis A. Whitney

Short Stories
Crimes of Passion with stories by Nancy Means, B.J. Daniels, Jonathan Harrington and Maggie Right Price
My Heart Cries Out for You by Bill Crider
Valentine's Day Is Killing Me edited by Leslie Esdaile, Mary Janice Davidson, Susanna Carr
Crimes of the Heart edited by Carolyn G. Hart
Valentine’s Day: Women Against Men-Stories of Revenge edited by Alice Thomas Editor

Still have time to spare, take a look at my Chocolate Blog, Dying for Chocolate, for recipes, chocolate news and more. Chocolate is the gift of choice on Valentine's Day!

Chinese New Year Mysteries

恭賀發財 Gung Ho Fat Choy! This is the Year of the Ox.
I love holiday mysteries, as you probably know if you've been following this Blog. Living in San Francisco, the City that Knows How, I thought I'd put together a special mystery list for Chinese New Year! This wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Yes, there's the Nancy Drew, The Chinese New Year Mystery that's part of the Nancy Drew Notebooks ( by Carolyn Keene and Jan Naimo Jones), but I was looking for adult mysteries.

So here's what I've come up with. I'd love to find out which ones I'm missing.

Year of the Dog by Henry Chang
The Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee by Robert Van Gulik (7th Century china) "New Year's Eve in Lan-Fang"
Dim Sum Dead by Jerrilyn Farmer
Neon Dragon by John Dobbyn

And, a short story by Mary Reed and Eric Mayer: "The Lady Fish Mystery", EQMM, September/October 1996.

I seem to remember a mystery by William Marshall (Yellowthread Street mysteries) set during Chinese New Year, but I may be mistaken. Surely I've missed a title by S. J. Rozan?

This was a challenge. During my search I discovered some information about typical foods for Chinese New Year. Did you know that carp is a typical main course on New Year's Eve? Carp symbolizes a profitable year ahead. Now carp reminds me of another holiday completely, and one of my favorite holiday books, not a mystery, is The Carp in the Bathtub by Barbara Cohen, illustrated by Joan Halpern. Yes, gefilte fish is made from carp. Speaking of food, here's a great article from Salon on "The Carp in the Bathtub" by Alan Deutschman for all you foodies out there.

But I digress. Must be because of the paucity of titles I've been able to come up with. So, I'm off to Chinatown where I can see the parade of dragons and hear the firecrackers, or at least I hope that's what they are. Let's face it, real shots often sound a lot like firecrackers, and this is a mystery Blog.