When a stranger hands trading post owner Texana Jones a suitcase full of money from a local drug lord, she's caught in a deadly no-man's-land between the feds and drug smugglers in this gripping south-of-the-border holiday mystery . . .

A Merry Little Christmas
Tom Mitcheltree

Everybody in town knew Adam Shipper was a saint -- even his cold-blooded murderer. As a cure for the holiday blues, English professor Paul Fischer does some sleuthing and finds secrets that could just make this Christmas his last.

Holidays Can Be Murder
Connie Shelton

The lights of Albuquerque are aglow for Christmas and Charlie Parker is delighted to have her mother-in-law for the holidays. Charlie's best friend, however, would prefer to find her own mother-in-law dead under the tree. Unfortunately, she gets her wish . . .

Too Many Santas
Elizabeth Gunn

When the department store Santa of Rutherford, Minnesota, goes missing, it's a child's happy shout that calls attention to the red-suited figure just visible within the branches of the Christmas tree. Jake Hines is called to investigate a holiday mystery with too many Santas . . ....

When Texana and Father Jack, the new Catholic priest, visit La Noria, the lush ranch belonging to the long-established Spanish-American Haro family, they find a conflict is roiling in that established house. Alicia, the padrone's granddaughter, has become Electra's devoted follower. In defense of his strong opposition, the elder Haro gives the visitors the story of the conflicts, both religious and political, in his own family that hardened his antagonism toward such preachers and their preaching.

Texana is shaken and Father Jack apprehensive as they leave to deliver Electra's grocery order. Their fears are more than justified. There is hatred and murder, and Texana suddenly finds herself reviled and shunned by the people in the town who she thought were her friends--and customers. Epithets are shouted at her, insults painted on the trading post wall. Even more frightening, there are threats of worse to come before Texana, backed by her husband, Clay, her father, and their loyal friend Pete Rosales, can win back friendship and respect without having to compromise her beliefs....

Legend and Murder on La Frontera

The stark Chihuahuan Desert of the Rio Grande borderlands stands in a blunt contrast to the influx of movie stars and cameras as a film crew arrives to make a documentary for the anniversary of a movie about Pancho Villa. Trading post owner Texana Jones was a child extra in that picture made forty years earlier, and remembers the hushed whispers when an actor was found murdered.

But the crime was never solved and now, as threats and violence disrupt the set and Texana's own life, she suspects a dark link to the past. As she searches her buried memories for new understanding, she discovers secrets about her own mother's relationship to the murdered man -- secrets that should stay hidden. But when a local child goes missing, Texana must make the disturbing connection between past and present before it's too late....