Between teaching, mothering, and prepping her Poodle for the next show, Melanie Travis barely has time to pencil in some Christmas festivities. Especially once she finds herself making a list of suspectsโand checking it twiceโ when murder comes home for the holidaysโฆ This year, all Melanie wants for Christmas is a dull momentโbut she's not going to get it. Between her eight- year-old son, Davey, her teaching job, and showing her soon-to-be champion Standard Poodle puppy, Eve, there just aren't enough hours in the day. Daveyโs in the Christmas play and the holidays are in full swing, so she'd like to make merry...or at least get around to decorating the tree! It would also be nice to spend a little time with her fiancรฉ, Sam.
But when Davey's usual bus driver, Henry Pruitt, disappears and is replaced by a surly, pierced, gum- chewing twentysomething, Melanie is concerned. The elderly, amiable Henry was a friend to all in the neighborhood, so she decides to check on him...only to find that he died two days ago, under suspicious circumstances.
As if that weren't bad enough, Henry's two Golden Retrievers, Pepper and Remington, are now bereft of both master and home. Naturally, Melanie can't just abandon them. So she brings them to her Aunt Peg, the most stubborn woman on the planet, whoโs now determined to find out the truth about Henry's death, no matter what it takes.
It turns out that Henry wasn't always a bus driverโbefore he retired, he had another career as a high-powered executive at an exclusive brokerage firm. He was also quite the ladies' man. Could one of his loves have turned lethal? Soon, the indomitable Aunt Peg has Melanie leashed to another murder investigation. And unless she sniffs out this Scrooge of a killer fast, a lump of coal in her stocking might not be the worst thing Melanie gets this Christmasโฆ
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