Part of Series
It's beginning to look a lot like murder'Tis the season to jolly and suburban mom Jane Jeffry's in a mad scramble to finish her cookie baking and household chores before her teenage kids arrive home. Also expected are two moms-both the late husband's mother and the disapproving mater of Det. Mel VanDyne, Jane's significant other. The kitchen is a disaster zone, the dog has decorated the house with hair, and the earsplitting racket coming from the neighbors tacky, music-making Christmas display is driving Jane crazy. Now she has to get the green icing out of her hair and be ready to host her post-caroling dinner party. One thing Jane isn't ready for is a surprise visit from a muckraking TV "action reporter," disguised as Santa Claus. The nasty old St. Nick is out to wrap a happy holiday caroling into a package marked "scandal," but before he has a chance to color the event with yellow journalism, his red-suited body slides off the neighbor's roof to land, silenced forever, on the horns of a plastic reindeer. It looks like Santa's mishap is no accident and, with the help of her friend Shelley, Jane finds plenty of suspects. The phony Santa has an ex-wife and a female assistant who both hate him, and plenty of nice people ruined by tales of naughtiness. Now Jane has to find the Grinch who thought murder was a way to save Christmas before the holiday turns into the unhappiest day of the year.
Author
A pseudonym used by Janice Young Brooks. Jill Churchill, winner of the Agatha and Macavity Mystery Readers Awards, and nominated for an Anthony for her best-selling Jane Jeffry series, lives as Jane does, in a midwestern suburb. On purpose! She says writing this series and the Grace and Favor series is the best treat she can have without a knife and fork. Under her real name, Janice Young Brooks, and various pseudonyms, she's written historical novels, a gothic novel, and a history textbook as well as many articles for newspapers and magazines. When she's not writing, she's avidly doing genealogy which she says is a lot like mysteries with all the red herrings, clues, speculations, and surprises. She gardens enthusiastically, needlepoints superbly, and plays a mean game of gin against the computer. She has a son and daughter and two granddaughters, Rose Louise and Emma. Janice is currently in a battle of supremacy with her cat Max.
