Because when Jake and her friend Ellie visit the home of a friend, Faye Anne Carmody, they find blood everywhere. Terrified that Faye's abusive husband, Merle, has killed her; they are relieved to see Faye standing in a corner, covered with blood, looking like she's in shock.

After Jake finds Merle the butcher's body, appropriately cut up into little pieces, Faye is considered the prime suspect. But Faye doesn't think she killed her husband, although she really can't remember much about what happened.

Ellie wants Jake to look into the matter. Jake has plans for the holidays; she wants to enjoy her newly wedded state with husband Wade, and spend time with her college-freshman son from her first marriage, Sam. And although Jake would be happy to neglect her ex-husband, Victor, he won't let her.

But Ellie is persuasive and Jake really does want to help Faye, so she adds some investigating into her holiday plans. Initial findings don't look promising and Ellie and Jake may be doing Faye's case more harm than good. Not to mention the fact that they could be getting themselves into trouble with both local and state law enforcement. And, they might be attracting the attention of a murderer.

Wreck the Halls is a little difficult to get into. Although the story starts at the scene of the crime, I hadn't read any of the pervious books in this series and felt a bit lost as to who Jake was - actually, I wasn't sure Jake was a woman until page 4. Bottom line, it took too long for the author to give the basics on Jake.

Also, I thought there were too many cutesy, run-on sentences in the first couple chapters. Although I usually like that sort of thing, I felt it was overdone here. After the first few chapters the book settles down and gets much, much better. The rest of the book is a very good whodunit. Jake and Ellie keep gathering more and more leads and more and more suspects.

The plot is well thought out. There are sufficient clues in the storyline that allow a reader to figure out the identity of the killer, but it's not easy. And I like that it's not easy.

--Judith Flavell