EVERYTHING GOES WRONG for fashion reporter Lacey Smithsonian this Christmas season. She tangles with "Sweatergate," a newsroom feud over garish holiday sweaters. The food editor refuses to bake the usual seasonal treats. The office Grinch is brutally assaulted with a giant candy cane, and Lacey's only witness is a homeless child in a stolen shepherd's robe. And who's getting blamed for "ruining Christmas"? Lacey, of course.

Christmas in Washington, D.C., is a glitzy season of celebration. But Lacey's encounter with the little lost shepherd sends her on a quest that reveals a tragic side of the holidays: There's no room at the inn for the cold, the hungry, and the homeless. Lacey must search the snowy back alleys of D.C. on an urgent mission to rescue a homeless child - and to keep a killer from ruining Christmas.