Sunday, November 28, 2021

CHANUKAH MYSTERIES // Hanukah Crime Fiction

Chanukah (no matter how you spell it - Hanukah, Hanukkah). The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah starts tonight and lasts for eight days, so you have plenty of time to read all these books! Let me know if I've missed any mysteries. This is an updated list.

Hanukkah Mystery Novels 
A Crafty Christmas by Molly Cox Bryan
Holiday Grind by Cleo Coyle (mostly about Christmas but Hanukah is mentioned)
Beautiful Lie the Dead by Barbara Fradkin
Strength to Stand by Sheyna Galyan
Festival of Deaths by Jane Haddam
Hanukkah Gelt by T. Lee Harris
Out of the Frying Pan into the Choir by Sharon Kahn
Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry by Harry Kemelman
Murder at the Minyan by Shlumat E. Kustanowitz
The Body in the Sleigh by Katherine Hall Page (mostly about Christmas but Hanukah is mentioned)
Dog Have Mercy by Neil Plakcy
Chanukah Guilt by Ilene Schneider
The Tattooed Rabbi by Marvin J. Wolf
Mom Lights a Candle by James Yaffe

Children's Hanukah Mysteries
Rabbi Rocketpower and the Mystery of the Missing Menorahs - A Hanukkah Humdinger! by Rabbi Susan Abramson and Aaron Dvorkin and Ariel DiOrio
Too Many Latkes: A Chanukah Mystery by Sonia Zylberberg
The Mohel from Mars by Miri Ariel
The Case of the Disappearing Chanukah Candles by Ellen Roteman
The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming by Lemony Snicket.

Mystery Short Stories
"Mom Lights a Candle" by James Yaffe, appeared in Mystery: The Best of 2002, ed. by Jon L. Breen.
"Hanukah" by Morris Hershman in Cat Crimes for the Holidays, ed. by Martin Greenberg, Edward Gorman and Larry Segriff
"The Worse Noel" by Barb Goffman in The Gift of Murder, ed. by John M. Floyd
"Death on the List" by B.K. Stevens (AHMM, January 1999)
For more info on Jewish short story mysteries, check out Steven Steinbock who blogs on Criminal Brief, the Mystery Short Story Web Log Project.
"Navidad" by Elizabeth Zelvin, EQMM, January 2011
"No Candles for Antiochus" by Barry Ergang
Murder is no Mitzvah: Short Stories about Jewish Occasions, edited by Abigail Browning
The Latke in the Library & Other Mystery Stories for Chanukah by Libi Astaire

Mystery Anthologies
The Melancholy Menorah (Jewish Regency Mystery Stories Book 4), Libi Astaire
The Latke in the Library and Other Mystery Stories for Chanukah, Libi Astaire
36 Candles: Chassidic Tales for Chanukah, Libi Astaire
Murder is No Mitzvah: Short Mysteries About Jewish Occasions, Abigail Browning
Jewish Noir, Edited by Kenneth Wishnia

Mystery Games
Children's software mystery game: Who Stole Hanukkah? offered in five languages: English, Hebrew, Russian, French and Spanish
Other Games for Children: The Case of the Stolen Menorah: An Enlightening Hanukkah Mystery

3 comments:

Claudia H Long said...

Of course there’s Nine Tenths of the Law, with its search for the looted menorah— a hanukiah stolen first by the Nazis, and seventy years later taken from a New York museum…
Happy Hanukkah!

pikajew said...

Thank you for this! Hanukkah so often gets overlooked. The year you wrote this though, it started the day you posted, not the day after. Our holidays start at sundown. The typical Gregorian calendar lists them starting at sunup so, the day after.

Janet Rudolph said...

Oops..wrote it on Saturday and meant to post then.. Forgot to fix when I posted..