It was Christmas in Lickin Creek, and all through the town something was stirring...

The borough council was quarreling about the color of the Christmas lights. A social workers wouldn't let a living baby be part of the town's living creche. And some ladies were stretching the limits of their leotards in a pageant called The Nutcracker.

All in all, former New Yorker Tori Miracle was basking in the quaint glow of her adopted Pennsylvania town, when suddently the season went sour. A boy was missing. A thirty-year-old mystery resurfaced. And now two people have been murdered. With her boyfriend -- the town police chief -- out of town, Tori must help his befuddled replacement.

And what she finds out, or should be finding out, is making Tori the next target -- of someone only in the mood for murder...