Mystery writer and amateur sleuth Maggie Kelly gets an unseasonable Christmas package in her fifth outing (after 2005's High Heels and Homicide
), a blithe mix of romantic fantasy and whodunit plotting. With the help of the Viscount Saint Just (her fictional Regency Era creation miraculously come to life as a handsome, protective suitor), her ex-boyfriend, NYPD detective Steve Wendell, and her publisher, Bernice Toland-James, Maggie figures out she's not the only mystery writer to receive a dead rat and death threat in the mail. Maggie wonders about a recently deceased colleague, an apparent suicide, and her suspicion becomes alarm when another writer turns up murdered. Maggie's wit and Saint Just's antics will raise the holiday spirits of Michaels's fans. (Nov.)
