The Christmas Thief (2004)

In this latest holiday suspense from the mother-daughter team behind Deck the Halls, Mary Higgins Clark's junior sleuth Alvirah Meehan teams with Carol Higgins Clark's PI Regan Reilly to learn the whereabouts of Packy Noonan — a convicted swindler who's released from the pokey and immediately heads to Stowe, Vt., to retrieve the diamonds he hid in a giant blue spruce more than a decade ago. While the plot is seriously outlandish — he freakin' stashed the ice in a tree? — Christmas Thief offers a fun, speedy read.