This is a clean Cozy Mystery Book does not contain any foul language, sexual situations, witches, spells, or paranormal events. Christmas is just a short time away and the newly elected mayor has asked all the local businesses to come together to help decorate the Christmas tree for the downtown square this year. Could the competition to decorate the tree result in murder?

Top Ten Finisher - P & E Readers Poll 2016Christmas lights shine on ghosts and gore, the Christmas moon shines on rampaging snowmen and glittering blades ... among the decorations and hanging on the tree are things we should not be seeing but which are there - including the bitter darkness of the human heart.This exciting new collection of Christmas horror has surpassed any other seasonal anthology Thirteen have put out, the stories will in turn touch you, shock you, surprise you and make you laugh. What more could you ask for a good read at this time of year?

This book is acknowledged as the only work dealing exclusively with the identification and description of international gallantry awards, past and present. The multitude of illustrations allows the reader to readily identify those awards most likely to be encountered. The work embraces forty-three countries and describes 270 decorations together with their various classes. A ten page ribbon chart shows 216 different world gallantry ribbons all in full colour.

Funerary practices have long been a classic topic of anthropological inquiry, which has tended to focus on death rituals as expressions and reinforcers of community ties and values. In this book, the author looks at funerals as an urban business, based on her fieldwork at a large Japanese funeral company. Her central theme is the progressive commercialization of what once were primarily religious rituals. The book depicts the process of contemporary Japanese funerals, the practices of those who provide commercial funeral services, and the motivations and behavior of the mourners who purchase those services. In so doing, it examines the role of funeral companies in shaping Japanese cultural practices and changing an important aspect of Japanese society. The author addresses several related questions: What cultural changes accompanied the shift from traditional community funeral rituals to commercial funeral services? How did the mass consumption of commercial funerals produce cultural homogeneity while allowing for differences in individual services? How does the marketing of professional funeral services mediate changing cultural values? How have commercial services served to objectify changing concepts of dying, death, and the deceased in contemporary Japan? The author demonstrates that the funeral industry, the purchasers of funeral services, and Japanese values surrounding death are mutually dependent and are responsible for supporting, representing, and transforming cultural practices. Throughout, the author relates vivid and often moving details and anecdotes to lend a personal element to her study of the commodification of death in Japan.