Book detail

Meg and Michael's house is serving as the marshaling point for the annual Caerphilly Christmas parade. And Meg is organizing the parade--the theme is "The Twelve Days of Christmas," and it features twelve drummers from the school marching band, eleven bagpipers, ten leaping lords costumed in medieval finery from the college drama department, etc. There are also assorted Christmas-themed floats, a live nativity scene on a flatbed truck, the Three Wise Men on Caerphilly zoo camels, and Santa Claus in a bright red horse-drawn sleigh. Meg's job is already heard enough when her nephew Eric, wide-eyed and ashen-faced, whispers, "Meg, something's wrong with Santa." The local curmudgeon, whose beard and belly made him a natural for the role, has been murdered. Now Meg and Chief Burke, (playing one of the wise men) are faced with the two-fold mission of solving the murder and saving Christmas!