Peppermint Barked

A Dickens of a Christmas turns deadly . . .

Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market, adores Christmas, and though she skips the Victorian costumes that go with this year's Dickensian theme, she's thrilled to celebrate the past and present in such a magical place. It's a treat to help customers find the perfect stocking stuffers and season their holiday meals to perfection. Stir in a tasty staff competition-a peppermint bark-off-and Pepper almost forgets to be nervous about meeting her fisherman boyfriend's brother for the first time.

But when a young woman working in her friend Vinny's wine shop is brutally assaulted, it's clear that trouble haunts the revelers. A ghost of the past, rattling its chains, or a contemporary Scrooge?

The attack on Beth upsets everyone at the Spice Shop, but none more than Matt Kemp. Pepper is baffled by the retail veteran's reaction, but he's keeping his secrets to himself. Then Vinny's ex-wife ratchets up her demands that the eccentric wine merchant buy her out of the shop. He'd love nothing more-nothing, that is, other than fulfilling his dream to expand his shop into the empty space next door. Paying her off might well cost him that chance.

As Pepper helps unload a delivery, she notices a costumed caroler. Could he be the man she spotted arguing with Beth in the Market the day before the attack? When Pepper is shoved to the ground in a parking lot late one night, the same night Beth dies, she's convinced that the mysterious singer is involved. To find the link, she's got to talk Vinny into letting her help him, and persuade Matt to open up. But the Market itself may hold the final, deadly clue