The Christmas Courtroom Trilogy

Book excerpt: This humorous holiday/mystery trilogy puts belief in Santa Claus on trial in three stand-alone cozies with a lovable cast of characters and a host of non-believer adversaries. The trilogy starts with “The Christmas Heist,” a “script somewhere between the screenplays for My Cousin Vinny and Miracle on 34th Street,” says the former Dean of Wake Forest University School of Law “and that’s a wonderful place to be.” Defendant Henry Edmonds, a homeless man who looks a bit like Santa Claus, is put on trial on Christmas Eve for stealing a flash drive full of secrets, and if he goes to jail, Christmas won’t come. Book two is “The Legally Binding Christmas,” a Christmas mystery with romantic tension, where now widowed lawyer, Thad Raker, goes up against a formidable single female adversary and tries to save Christmas once again. When the local government his adversary represents moves to condemn the dilapidated home of Raker’s eccentric new client, the trial puts Santa’s distribution system at risk and Christmas in peril. The final story, “The Christmas Redemption,” won the 2018 Holiday category of the 12th Annual National Indie Excellence Awards and was Honorable Mention in the 2018 Holiday category in the 10th Annual Readers’ Favorite Awards. Thad Raker is hired to defend the toy company that made the most popular Christmas present in 50 years—the Reindeer Hoverboard—and becomes entangled in the greatest threat to Christmas yet when he learns that the survival of Santa’s North Pole village is at risk. Standing in Raker’s way are a large class of angry plaintiffs, an unbelieving judge, the FBI, several North Pole conspirators and Hank Snow, Raker’s nemesis from his previous Christmas trials. “The Christmas Redemption” is where “John Grisham meets Santa Claus,” says humorist and author Tracy Curtis, “for a hoverboard ride that seamlessly blends courtroom drama, corruption, climate change and Christmas with great humor and with a message about the true meaning of Christmas and the importance of family.”