Description: A Dickens of a Christmas turns deadly ...
As the holiday season lights up Seattle's famed Pike Place Market, Pepper Reece's beloved Spice Shop is brimming with cinnamon, nutmeg, and shoppers eager to stuff their stockings. Add to the mix a tasty staff competition--a peppermint bark-off--along with Victorian costumes for this year's Dickensian Christmas theme, and Pepper almost forgets to be nervous about meeting her fisherman boyfriend's brother for the first time. But when a young woman working in her friend Vinny's wine shop is brutally assaulted, costumed revelers and holiday cheer are the last things on Pepper's mind. Who would want to hurt Beth? Or were they looking for Vinny instead? As the secrets of the market come to light, long-held grudges, family ties, and hidden plans only further obscure the truth. Is it a ghost of the past rattling its chains, or a contemporary Scrooge with more earthly motives? As Pepper chases down a killer, someone is chasing her, and in the end, the storied market itself may hold the final, deadly clue.Brief description: Leslie Budewitz is the nationally bestselling author of the Spice Shop Mysteries and the Food Lovers' Village Mysteries. She is also the author of short stories that have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, Suspense Magazine, Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and other publications. She is the winner of the 2013 Agatha Award for Best First Novel for Death al Dente and the 2011 Agatha Award for Best Nonfiction for Books, Crooks & Counselors.