The Knives Before Christmas: A Santa-In-Training Mystery

Holiday emporium owner Thomas Nast isn't your typical guy. His Victorian—era home is sentient with a 13—foot guard alligator named Tinsel living in its walls. A mostly invisible—and mischievous—elf named Peppermint reluctantly serves his every whim. And he just happens to be the next in line to become the real—life Santa Claus. Until that happens, however, Tom spends his days helping the people—and frequent tourists—of Christmas, Florida, with all their Christmas and other holiday needs.

That is, of course, until he walks into his store one morning to find the body of a man dressed in full Santa costume—a man reviled by almost everyone in town—who's been stabbed multiple times with a pocketknife identical to six custom jobs Tom had given to his closest friends a few years earlier.

With Tom's young assistant, Trixie McNamara, in police crosshairs as the prime suspect, Tom is forced to dig up the dirt on his friends, a nasty town spinster, and a semi—retired mobster to prove Trixie's innocence. But as he investigates the murder, Tom will find himself in the crosshairs of an altogether different kind if he's not careful...and Santas—in—Training, he knows, can die just like anyone else.