The Knives Before ChristmasKent HollowayLabel: Turner Publishing CompanyDescription: International bestselling mystery author Kent Holloway spins a delightfully mischievous holiday mystery full of twists and turns sure to delight amateur sleuth fans of all ages!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.
