From maryhigginsclark.com:

Mary Higgins Clark, America’s Queen of Suspense, and her daughter, bestselling mystery writer Carol Higgins Clark, have again joined forces to create a suspenseful and humorous holiday tale.

Alvirah Meehan, the lottery winner turned amateur sleuth, teams up with private investigator Regan Reilly to solve another Christmas mystery. In Deck the Halls, they rescued Regan’s kidnapped father. This time they get in the middle of a case involving a beautiful eighty-foot blue spruce that has been chosen to spend the holidays as Rockefeller Center’s famous Christmas tree. The folks who picked the tree don’t have a clue that attached to one of its branches is a flask chock-full of priceless diamonds that Packy Noonan, a scam artist just released from prison, had hidden there over twelve years ago.

An excited Packy breaks his parole and heads to Stowe, Vermont, to reclaim his loot. Once there, he is horrified to discover that his special tree will be heading to New York City the next morning. With a bumbling crew consisting of Jo-Jo, Benny, and an unsuccessful poet, Milo, he knows he has to act fast.

What Packy does not know is that Alvirah and Regan are on a weekend trip to Stowe with Alvirah’s husband, Willy; Regan’s fiancé, Jack; Regan’s parents, Luke and Nora; and Alvirah’s friend Opal, a lottery winner who lost all her winnings in Packy’s scam. On Monday morning when they’re supposed to head home, they learn that the tree is missing, Packy Noonan may be in the vicinity, and Opal has disappeared.

From two of America’s beloved storytellers, The Christmas Thief is filled with suspense, comic characters, and holiday cheer, and is sure to delight its readers.

Pocket Books 2005

- I bought the book today in Kontti, the flea market of the Finnish Red Cross, in Itäkeskus (4 paperbacks for 1 euro). I'll probably use the book for the BC Christmas Calender ;)

The Christmas Thief on Soozreaderin toivelistalla ja siirtyy kuriirille parin tunnin kuluttua. Itse kun en pääse miittiin 17.7., olisi ollut kiva nähdä!

Isot kiitokset duffeli-kuriirille ja lukuiloa Soozreaderille! Hyvää kesää molemmille!

Thanks to duffeli the courier! Enjoy reading, Soozreader!

Thank you very much for this wishlist book! Hyvää kesää!

This was a good and entertaining cozy mystery! I liked it a lot!

The book is on its way to the next reader. Happy reading!

Came home today after the Christmas break and found the book in the mailbox. Such a nice homecoming present :-) Looks like a cosy mystery. Thank you, soozreader!

It was a cosy mystery but a bit bland. The beginning was really slow, it felt like the same things were repeated again and again and the story went nowhere. It got a bit better but somehow I would have liked it better if the beginning had been shorter and the end would have been told in more depth, it was bit abrupt now. When two writes are collaborating in one book, these are perhaps the pitfalls, especially as this was written for a special occasion.

Vapautui vaihtohyllyyn.