The Knives Before Christmas

<p><strong>International bestselling mystery author J. Kent Holloway spins a delightfully mischievous holiday mystery full of twists and turns sure to delight amateur sleuth fans of all ages!</strong></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>