It is late 1942, and Detective Inspector Tom Tyler is settling into his placement in Ludlow, Shropshire, which is crowded with evacuees and others fleeing the German bombs. On the town's outskirts is an Italian PoW camp, whose inmates work on local farms. Fraternizing is forbidden but, as Tyler knows only too well, the human heart has a way of crossing boundaries.Tyler is kept busy enforcing wartime regulations, until an old man goes missing, and his body is later discovered in a secret hideout supposedly known to very few. What's more, the two evacuee children who found the body are clearly not telling the whole truth, but when Tyler tries to question them further, they vanish from their foster home. A crime has clearly been committed, but there is no shortage of suspects...

It is the summer of 1942, and after two difficult years, Tom Tyler is making a fresh start in Ludlow, Shropshire. On the outskirts of town, St. Anne's Convalescent Hospital, staffed by nursing sisters who are also Anglican nuns, has been established in an old manor house to help victims of the war. But their peace is shattered when a horrifying double murder is discovered on the grounds. Tyler must discover how the crime was committed in such a secluded place, where many of the patients are unable to walk or see and most are deeply traumatized. When he begins to receive mysterious letters recounting terrible crimes, he realises that he is not only seeking a murderer, but that the horrors of the war are closing in on a place of refuge.

In 1940, England is desperate and fearful. The threat of a German invasion is real, and many German Nationals are interned in camps across the country. When a young woman is found murdered on a desolate country road, Tom Tyler, a detective inspector, finds himself drawn into an uneasy alliance with one of the Prees Heath internees, a psychiatrist, who is an expert on the criminal mind.

In the cold Toronto winter of 1895, the naked body of a servant girl is found frozen in a deserted laneway. The young victim was pregnant when she died. Detective William Murdoch soon discovers that many of those connected with the girl's life have secrets to hide. Was her death on attempt to cover up a scandal in one of the city's influential families?

In 1858, a young woman on her honeymoon is abducted, taken across the border to the US and sold into slavery. Thirty-eight years later, the owner of one of Toronto's livery stables has been found dead, horsewhipped and hung from his wrists in his tack room. The investigation endangers Murdoch's own life - and reveals how harms committed in the past can erupt fatally in the present.

The Reverend Charles Howard sat in judgement on the poor, assessing their applications for the workhouse. But now he is dead, stabbed and brutally beaten in his office. Has some poor beggar he turned down taken his vengeance? Murdoch's investigation takes him into the world of the destitute who had nowhere to turn when they knocked on the Reverend Howard's door.

Set in 1917 during the home front of WWl Toronto, starring an older William Murdoch.

November, 1940. Tom Tyler, Detective Inspector is a troubled man. He is asked to help out in an inquiry into an explosion in a munitions factory that has killed several of the young women who have taken on dangerous work in support of the war effort. At first, it seems more than likely the explosion was an accident, but as Tom talks to the employees of the factory, the cracks begin to appear.

Dolly Merishaw is a midwife and an abortionist in Victorian Toronto, and although she keeps quiet about her clients, her contempt and greed leaves them resentful and angry. It comes as no surprise to Detective William Murdoch when she is murdered, but when a young boy is found dead in Dolly's squalid kitchen a week later, Murdoch isn't sure if he's hunting one murderer - or two.

Detective William Murdoch is not convinced that Constable Oliver Wicken - a man who was the sole support of his mother and invalid sister - committed suicide. When he begins to suspect the involvement of Wicken's neighbours, the Eakin family, Mrs Eakin is committed to a lunatic asylum. Is she really insane, he wonders, or has she been deliberately driven over the edge?

After thirteen-year-old Agnes Fisher faints at school, her teacher is shocked to discover salacious photographs of the girl in her desk. When Agnes doesn't show up at school the next day, her teacher takes the photographs to the police. Murdoch, furious at the sexual exploitation of such a young girl, resolves to find the photographer - and to put him behind bars.

Christmas is a time for joy, laughter, family reunions and-- murder! Blood on the Holly is an anthology packed with mystery, murder and maple syrup. Stories range from the hilarious to the serious, by celebrated authors like Peter Robinson and Ed Hoch, favorite series writers like Lyn Hamilton and Sylvia Maultash Warsh and first timers with their own take on the season to be criminal. The perfect gift for the mystery lover on your Christmas list!