The seventh in this lightweight cozy series (Death of a Damn Yankee, etc.) brings amateur sleuth Laura Fleming back to her hometown of Byerly, N.C., where once again murder and mayhem prevail. Five months pregnant, Laura, an MIT graduate and computer programmer, and her English professor husband, Richard, had planned on spending a quiet Christmas at home in Boston until a call came from Laura's cousin, Vasti, who begged Richard to come down to help put on a play version of Dickens's A Christmas Carol. What begins as the fulfillment of Richard's dream to be a director soon becomes a nightmare when a series of practical jokes turns dangerous and the actor playing Scrooge gets murdered. In spite of his death, members of his family decide the show must go on.
