It's Christmastime in Cabot Cove and murder is afoot in the newest entry in the USA Today bestselling Murder, She Wrote series.

The gossip lines are burning throughout Cabot Cove this holiday season. The annual Christmas Festival is getting closer and Cabot Cove is one of the towns being considered to become the premier Christmas Town in Maine's official tourist brochure. Mayor Jim Shevlin insists that the annual Christmas pageant play and the parade led by the Founders float are not enough to win a spot in the brochure so everyone is busy reviving old holiday traditions and developing new ones. Everyone, that is, except local realtor Eve Simpson, who has contracted to sell the old Jarvis homestead to Boston tycoon John Bragdon. The sale becomes complicated when Kenny Jarvis, a former student of Jessica's who has been missing and presumed dead for years, suddenly returns to Cabot Cove to prevent his sister from selling their childhood home.

While most of the townspeople are busy planning for the Christmas Festival, Eve organizes a welcoming dinner for John Bragdon, his wife, Marlene, and his business entourage so they can meet the town's leading citizens, including Jessica Fletcher, who notices tension among Bragdon's staff which only heightens when John's former intern shows up at the dinner. Then Kenny Jarvis accosts John's wife telling her she will never live in his house. When Marlene turns up dead a few days later, Jessica is convinced that Kenny had nothing to do with the murder, but can she prove his innocence?