The picturesque town of Alpine in Washington’s Cascade Mountains is decked out in holiday finery, but family troubles are brewing at the Alpine Advocate: Editor and publisher Emma Lord is fretting over how her brother and her son—both priests—will react when she confesses her passionate affair with Sheriff Milo Dodge; House & Home editor Vida Runkel realizes that her spoiled grandson has gone off the rails; and Emma’s star reporter goes AWOL after learning that his son has escaped from prison. And yet another Alpine family is singing the Christmas blues when Postmaster Roy Everson shows up with bones that may or not belong to his mother, who’s been missing for the last sixteen years.

But the most disturbing holiday dilemma is the body found in the cave on Mount Sawyer. The decomposed corpse is that of a mature male, so it can’t be Mama Everson. Is there a connection between this long-ago disappearance and the gruesome bones discovered earlier downstream on the Skykomish River?

When Milo returns from his own family ordeal in the Seattle suburbs, he and Emma find time away from the unnerving investigation to reunite. Their all-too-obvious ardor evokes not only Vida’s wrath but the attention of a dogged killer who thinks the lovers’ bliss is to die for . . . literally. Scandal, intrigue, desire, and untimely death are all pieces to this tantalizing puzzle. If anyone can put it together, it’s Emma . . . hopefully before a dangerous enemy tries to stop her—permanently. Mary Daheim’s Christmas installment in the Emma Lord mystery series is a deliciously chilling holiday treat.

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Praise for Mary Daheim and her Emma Lord mysteries
 
“Always entertaining.”—The Seattle Times
 
“Mary Daheim writes with wit, wisdom, and a big heart. I love her books.”—Carolyn Hart
 
“Daheim writes . . . with dry wit, a butter-smooth style, and obvious wicked enjoyment.”—The Oregonian
 
“The characters are great, and the plots always attention-getting.”—King Features Syndicate
 
“Even the most seasoned mystery fans are caught off-guard by [Daheim’s] clever plot twists.”—BookLoons Reviews
 
“Witty one-liners and amusing characterizations.”—Publishers Weekly

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Mary Richardson Daheim started spinning stories before she could spell. Daheim has been a journalist, an editor, a public relations consultant, and a freelance writer, but fiction was always her medium of choice. In 1982 she launched a career that is now distinguished by more than fifty novels. In 2000, she won the Literary Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Writers Association. In October 2008 she was inducted into the University of Washington’s Communications Hall of Fame. Daheim lives in her hometown of Seattle and is a direct descendant of former residents of the real Alpine when it existed in the early part of the twentieth century.

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