SILENCED IN SLEAUFORT

Christmas in Sleafort should be a happy time for Bixie Lee Biddle. She has narrowly escaped death in her most recent adventure. But Bixie is finding it difficult to get her holiday groove on. She is overworked and surrounded by the jolly courthouse group buzzed up from sugar and alcohol. Being forced to attend her niece's school play (awful), help with an x-rated holiday party (bunch of drunks), and do the Santa-courthouse gig, including ho-ho-hoing at the annual office celebration are not joy-makers.

Bixie continues to be stalked. Someone is leaving sinister gifts, making threatening phone calls, and, oh yes, has killed three people who resembled Bixie. Who is the stalker? There are Thomases everywhere. Dr. Thomas, Rustin's psychotic killer, is out on bail. The "dead" Thomases seem very alive and there is a cluster of folks everywhere with the special Thomas eyes.

During this holiday season, perhaps Santa will bring a special gift for Bixie: the end of the Thomases, another helper, a vacation from her co-workers and bosses, a new car, a real hunk of a man, all the chocolate she can eat. Nah, staying alive until the New Year will be present enough.