A Wee Christmas Homicide

July 27, 2009
Using Tiny Teddies, highly collectible bears, to launch a Twelve Days of Christmas marketing ploy should be a totally benign means of attracting customers for the business owners of Moosetookalook, Maine, but Liss MacCrimmon's brainchild brings in a frenzy of bear hunters—and a crazed killer—in Dunnett's lively, clean-as-a-whistle third cozy to feature the co-owner of the Scottish Emporium (after 2008's Scone Cold Dead
). When the supply of Tiny Teddies wanes, Liss is approached with an offer of a new batch of these impossible-to-acquire fur balls. Knowing to steer clear of anything illegally transported from Canada, Liss declines, apparently unlike Gavin Thorne, proprietor of the Toy Box. Thorne's demise soon follows an unknown assailant's shooting an overpriced bear to stuffings. Dunnett (the pseudonym of Kathy Lynn Emerson, author of the Lady Susanna Appleton historical series) stirs smugglers, lovers and thieves into a healthy helping of foul play.