“You have to come NOW! The lady is hurt!”  The voice of a frightened child draws fashion reporter and sometime sleuth Lacey Smithsonian down a dark alley in Washington, D.C., and deep into a mystery that endangers more than just her Christmas spirit. On the eve of The Eye Street Observer's holiday party, the newspaper’s crankiest Grinch falls victim to a mysterious assailant in a Santa Claus cap. A rival journalist, a political terrorist, an enraged reader? Or something far more sinister? Both the victim’s life and Lacey's newsroom are full of suspects, and what’s her boyfriend Vic secretly building in his garage? Lacey's caught in a Christmas crossfire! Her holiday glow is fading faster than reindeer can fly. The key is an elusive runaway child in a shepherd's robe, and to save Christmas Lacey will have to play shepherd herself. Can she find one little lamb lost in the wintery wilderness of Washington--before the wolf finds them both?