Hanukkah starts a week from today. Are you looking for some Hanukkah mysteries in the sea of Christmas books? Your Dead Guy librarian is here to help ... as much as she can.
Open WorldCat shows about 400 titles with the subject Hanukkah - Fiction. Christmas - Fiction yields 20,000 titles. Christmas trees - Fiction yields over 700 titles. So, Christmas trees get more fiction than Hanukkah. And yes, I know, Hanukkah isn't the most important Jewish holiday of the year -- that honor belongs to Passover. Know how many hits we get for Passover - Fiction? 200.
Of course, not all detective novels are cataloged with the exact same terms, so let's try other methods. A keyword search for Hanukkah and Murder yields ten titles; Christmas and Murder yields 3000. Hanukkah and Detective yields eleven titles; Christmas and Detective yields over 6000.
If you Google "Hanukkah mystery" you'll find a lot more (and less) than detective fiction. (For example, I "learned" that the history of Hanukkah foreshadows the reign of the Antichrist ... whatever, dudes.) The religious "mysteries" of Hanukkah -- the candles, the oil -- take up most of the Google links. But you will find a few crime novels:
Jane Haddam, Festival of Deaths (1994)
T. Lee Harris, Hanukkah Gelt (2010)
Sharon Kahn, Out of the Frying Pan, Into the Choir: A Ruby, the Rabbi's Wife Mystery (2006)
Shulamit E. Kustanowitz, Murder at the Minyan (2006)
Ilene Schneider, Chanukah Guilt (2007)
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)
Chanukah Guilt by Ilene Schneider - See more at: http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2010/12/chanukah-crime-fiction.html#sthash.AaZ3FNYu.dpuf
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)
Chanukah Guilt by Ilene Schneider - See more at: http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2010/12/chanukah-crime-fiction.html#sthash.AaZ3FNYu.dpuf
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)
Chanukah Guilt by Ilene Schneider - See more at: http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2010/12/chanukah-crime-fiction.html#sthash.AaZ3FNYu.dpuf
Laurence Roth's Inspecting Jews: American Jewish Detective Stories may also be of use, along with Abigail Browning's Murder is No Mitzvah: Short Mysteries about Jewish Occasions.
And, for kids, there's Rabbi Rocketpower and the Mystery of the Missing Menorahs by Rabbi Susan Abramson and Aaron Dvorkin, with illustrations by Ariel DiOrio.
Only one of these books, Kahn's Out of the Frying Pan, is from major publisher (Scribner). Doesn't that seem weird? If only I knew someone in publishing, someone who could try to change these statistics ... Josh, keep you eye out for a Hanukkah novel. There's a market gap. And imagine the December sales!
If I missed any -- and I hope I did -- please let me know in the comments.
One last thought: if you're feeling bummed out about the dearth of Hanukkah detective stories, you could cheer yourself up by hosting a Hannukah-themed mystery party!
My Chanukah-themed, Agatha Christie-inspired collection of short stories has just been published. It's called The Latke in the Library & Other Mystery Stories for Chanukah. Here's the link: http://www.amazon.com/Latke-Library-Mystery-Stories-Chanukah-ebook/dp/B018U8MDK8 Thanks so much!
Posted by: Libi Astaire | December 10, 2015 at 06:01 AM
Congratulations! That's so cool!
Posted by: Jessy Randall | December 10, 2015 at 11:38 AM