Jane Jeffry is a Chicago suburban widow with three kids, all of whom are home for the holidays. Jane is busy with holiday obligations like hosting the neighborhood after caroling dinner as well as the neighborhood cookie exchange. Just when she felt things were getting under control, her police detective boyfriend asked Jane if she could let his visiting mother stay in the guest room until he got his furnace fixed. Then Jane's neighbor informed her that a local tv reporter was going to be using Jane's house as a base of operations for a holiday special interest story he was doing on the neighborhood. Jane put her foot down and said absolutely not happening. Plus, new neighbors had just moved in next door. They had lit up their house for the holidays and were playing extremely loud Christmas music to the neighborhood's horror. The night of caroling went quite well except the reporter, a muck raker, decided to show up at Jane's house uninvited. Later that evening, the reporter was found dead on the neighbor's lawn. It was a good thing that Mel, Jane's boyfriend was still at the after caroling dinner. So much for a quiet uneventful family holiday season, as Jane and her best friend Shelley try to figure just exactly what was going on in their neighborhood. This was a fast fun 4 hour holiday read for me. I had forgotten how much I enjoy this series. ( )

After 58 pages, I abandoned this book that wasn't working for me. I was almost 20% into the book. No murder had been committed. I failed to connect with any characters.