Down These Mean Streets with Boughs of Holly... Christmas Eyes

Down These Mean Streets with Boughs of Holly...
Christmas Eyes

"The next person that says Merry Christmas to me, I'll kill them"
-- Nora Charles (Myrna Loy) in the film The Thin Man.

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SHORT STORIES

"A Hard-Boiled Christmas"
by Stephen Reid
(December 23, 1989, The Globe and Mail)
A feel-good story about a down-on-his-luck PI, a has-been thespian, a mobster, a mayor, a Christmas party at a Children's Shelter, and a gal called Gallagher.
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"The Three Wise Guys"
by Howard Engel
1989, Mistletoe Mysteries
Benny Cooperman, Jewish private eye deep in the waspland of southern Ontario, deals with Christmas and the mob.
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"And All Through the House"
by Ed McBain
1984
Not a P.I. story, but you gotta give it up for this 87th Precinct tale that celebrates Christmas Eve with the usual unusual suspects, including a pregnant woman named Maria.
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"File 6: Beyond the Shadow"
by Joe Gores
(January 1972, EQMM)
A DKA tale, wherein Dan Kearney himself encounters the Ghost of Ops Past in the form of the Continental Op in this Christmas/ghost story.
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"Mr. Big"
by Woody Allen
I'm not sure if this qualifies as a Christmas story, although the editors of Murder for Christmas, Volume II, feel it does, due to the name of the winner of the fifth race at Aqueduct. Anyway, in this existentialist little romp, New Yawk private eye Kaiser Lupowitz is hired to track down God who, you may have heard, has connections with this Christmas thing. A hoot.
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"Christmas Party"
by Rex Stout
(1956, And Four To Go; also 1982, Murder for Christmas, Volume II)
This Nero Wolfe tale finds Archie and the big man himself trying to solve a murder "at that most vicious of all holiday institutions, the office Christmas party."
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"Silent Night"
by Baynard Kendrick
(December 1958, Sleuth Mystery Magazine; also 1982, Murder For Christmas, Volume 2)
Blind private eye Captain Duncan Maclain rushes to wrap up a kidnapping, while Bing Crosby plays and plays and plays....
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"By the Chimney With Care"
by Nick O'Donohoe
(1978, MSMM; 1981, The Twelve Crimes of Christmas)
PIs Nathan Phillips and Roy Cartley have a problem. Seems someone's left a dead safecracker in Roy's living room, "by the chimney with care." And the house is filled with Christmas-happy kids.
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"Here Comes Santa Claus"
by Bill Pronzini
(1989, Mistletoe Mysteries)
Bill Pronzini's occasionally-grumpy Nameless finally gets a name -- Santa Claus. Kerry, the love of his life, cons him into donning the uniform of the jolly old elf in the name of charity and "for the kids."
NOTE: You can read this story for free at Mystery.Net.
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"Silent Night"
by Marcia Muller
(1989, Mistletoe Mysteries)
Sharon McCone has to deal with an unwanted Christmas gift and a runaway nephew on Christmas Eve.
NOTE: You can read this story for free at Mystery.Net.
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"Christmas Ice"
by Kenneth Gavrell
(January 1995, AHMM)
San Juan PI Carlos Bannon tries to track down a missing executive in the midst of a Puerto Rican Christmas.
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"As Dark As Christmas Gets"
by Lawrence Block
(1997, Mysterious Press Christmas Card; also December 1998, EQMM)
Featuring Chip Harrison and Leo Haig. Leo leaves his home to investigate the theft of a handwritten manuscript from Otto Penzler's takes place at the Mysterious Bookstore in New York Great fun.
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"Christmas Rain"
by Donna Huston Murray
(1998, Lethal Ladies II)
Rainy McGuinn, the P.I. with the rain phobia, is hired to do some department store security during the Christmas rush.
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"A Wreath for Marley"
by Max Allan Collins
(1996, Dante's Disciples)
A novella that's a gene-splice of The Maltese Falcon and A Christmas Carol, combining fantasy elements with the P.I. story, featuring his Chicago eye Richard Stone.
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"Whacking Scrooge"
by Hugh Lessig
(2003, Thrilling Detective Web Site)
A seasonal little tale by our ol' pal Hugh Lessig, featuring his intrepid newshawkm Picasso Smith, Jr., that we think will really get your chestnuts roasting.
"The Santa Claus Murders"
by Ed Gorman
(2003, Crooks, Crimes, and Christmas).. Buy this book
Santa is murdered at a Christmas party and small town Iowa lawyer/private eye Sam McCain investigates.
"All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth"
by Lori Avocato
(2006, Sugarplums and Scandal)... Buy this book
Medical fraud investigator Pauline Sokol checks out some shaky dealings in a dentist's office. The tooth will out.

NOVELS

Uneasy Street
by Wade Miller
(1948)
San Diego's Max Thursday spends the holidays with a fake count, a fortune hunter, a bunch of globe-trotting crooks, and a valuable music box, and wraps it up with a nice seasonal touch.
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A Corpse for Christmas
by Henry Kane
(1951)
Private richard Peter Chambers celebrates Christmas the old-fashioned New York way--with murder!
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Shoot a Sitting Duck
by David Alexander
(1955)
Fans of Yuletide murders that take place in flea circuses could do far worse than checking out this Bart Hardin case.
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Murder is My Dish
by Stephen Marlowe
(1957)
Globe-trotting PI Chet Drum spends the Christmas holidays tracking the murderer of his partner in South America.
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Merry Christmas, Murdock...Buy this book
by Robert J. Ray
(1989)
Southern California eye Murdock finds murder at the mall, right in the middle of a Yuletide shopping frenzy. And you thought you hated shopping....
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"E" is for Evidence....Buy this book
by Sue Grafton
(1989)
Poor Kinsey! Christmas finds her with an extra $5000 in her bank account, and no idea what it's doing there. Amidst the backdrop of the holiday season, she races to clear her name, when rumours surface that she's been paid off. One of the best in this popular series.
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Visions of Sugar Plums....Buy this book
by Janet Evanovich
(2002)
A special holiday novella, with everyone's favourite Joisey Goil, Stephanie Plum, getting into the "friggin' Spirit of Christmas," hunting down a bail jumper named Sandy Claws and the perfect tree.
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Jingle's Christmas
by Randy Rawls
(2004)
In this whimsical tale, Texas P.I. Ace Edwards is hired by Jingle, the vice-president of Toy Distribution for Santa Claus in the Southwest, to recover some stolen toys. Ace, humbug that he is, is reluctant at first to take the case.
The Fat Man: A Tale of North Pole Noir....Buy this book...Kindle it!
by Ken Harmon
(2010)
Ken Harmon’s cleverly titled comic novel, published just in time for Christmas, sports a pretty good premise: the shotgun wedding of the hard-boiled crime story and the holiday-inspired hokum that has become our Christmas culture. It relates the story of Gumdrop Coal, a disillusioned elf neither tarnished nort afraid, currently on the outs with Old Saint Nick (the “Fat Man” of the title, of course).

FILMS

The Thin Man
(1934, MGM)
Not really a Christmas movie, although the Christmas scenes in Nick and Nora Charles' first film are true classics. Asta gets a fire hydrant, and Nick, full of Yuletide cheer, uses his brand-new pop gun to pick ornaments off the tree. A perfect Christmas afternoon flick.
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The Lady in the Lake
(1947, MGM)
Chandler's Philip (here for some reason spelled "Phillip") Marlowe is hired to track down the missing wife of a pulp magazine publisher. The entire film is seen through the eyes of Marlowe, (literally! The technique utilizes a "subjective camera.") so we rarely catch a glimpse of Robert Montgomery, who also directed. Probably just as well. This is the lamest Marlowe film of them all, even less entertaining than Mitchum's road trip to London in 1978's drowsy The Big Sleep remake.
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I, The Jury
(1953, Parklane Productions)
The first Mike Hammer movie, shot in 3-D, no less! -- which takes place at Christmas and has an ironic use of Christmas music and Christmas cards throughout. Each major sequence begins with a Christmas card filling the screen as Hammer does his voiceover. The question is "How could they?" The answer, of course: "It was easy."
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
(2005, Warner Bros)
Okay, so it's not really a Christmas flick Christmas flick, but at least part of the action plays out during the Holidays. Plus, you've got at least two wise men (P.I. Gay Perry and writer/director Shane Black), an ass (Harry Lockhart as played by Robert Downey Jr.) and Michelle Monaghan in her little Santa suit. In other words, it's a pure blast of fun. Pass the eggnog.

TELEVISION

"Door to "Death" and "Christmas Party"
(2001, A&E)
Back to back Christmas-related episodes starring Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe and Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin are sure to put even the most glum mystery fan into a better frame of mind for the season. Plus, nobody puts on a holiday spread like Fritz.

List compiled by Kevin Burton Smith. Thanks to Max Allan Collins, Jim Doherty and Dale Stoyer for their help. Merry Christmas, guys. What have we missed?