Review: In new collection, a book store attracts the wrong kind of customers — the murdering kind

Why are the holidays such a popular time to bump someone off?

Fictionally speaking, December may be the most murder-y time of the year. Eventually, most popular mystery writers — from classic practitioners such as Agatha Christie ("Hercule Poirot's Christmas") to contemporary writers such as Peter Swanson ("The Christmas Guest") — get around to setting a book during the holidays. Which is probably good business, since a large percentage of book sales happen around gift-giving time, and good plotting, since snow creates isolated settings for holiday mayhem in many parts of the world.

Mystery fans will find some of their favorite writers up to holiday no-good in "Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop," a collection of stories commissioned by Manhattan's equivalent of Minneapolis' Once Upon a Crime, a shop devoted entirely to fictional crime.

The stories vary from latter-day noir to cozy murder but they're united by the fact that all have at least a little something to do with the Mysterious Bookshop. It's the location of murders in some stories and its owner, mystery editor Otto Penzler, often pops up as a character — albeit never as the perpetrator or victim of murder.

The deal with this kind of collection is that each reader's mileage will vary, depending on your favorite mystery writers. I've never read any novels by Jeffrey Deaver but I may now, since his "The Christmas Party" is my favorite story in "Christmas Crimes." It packs quite a few twists into just 32 pages, in which a greedy couple plot to confine an uncle to a nursing home and steal his millions.

There's a satisfying, almost O. Henry-like comeuppance at the end of "Party," which is true of many of the stories in a collection that, perhaps because of its holiday theme, seems even more interested than most crime books in making sure the good guys win.

That's definitely the case in Ragnar Jónasson's "A Christmas Puzzle" in which an elderly woman seeks help solving a misshapen, crossword-like puzzle. Packed with clues based on the novels of Christie, Louise Penny, John Grisham and others, it — like TV's current "Matlock" reboot — takes inspiration from the notion that older people often fly under the radar, which they can use to their advantage if they're smart.

Those superstars-of-mystery-writing clues seem designed to draw in readers who aren't familiar with some of the contemporary authors collected in "Christmas Crimes," which also functions as a snappy introduction to Lyndsay Faye, whose "A Midnight Clear" veers closer to romance than anything in the collection, or David Gordon, whose "Sergeant Santa" has a hard-boiled, James M. Cain edge to it.

I didn't love a few of the stories but it's still tempting to say there's something for everyone, or at least every mystery reader, in "Christmas Crimes." That goes beyond the 12 tales themselves, since the book offers situations designed to appeal to mystery fans (author readings, a book store after hours).

Even if you just pay attention to the conversations between characters, there are so many recommendations of excellent mysteries you may have missed that "Christmas Crimes" sometimes feels like a book club and gift guide all in one.

Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop

By: Various authors, edited by Otto Penzler.

Publisher: Mysterious Press, 320 pages, $19.95.