Pepper Reece, owner of the Spice Shop in Seattle's Pike Place Market, adores Christmas, and though she skips the Victorian costumes that go with this year's Dickensian theme, she's thrilled to celebrate the past and present in such a magical place. But when a young woman working in her friend Vinny's wine shop is brutally assaulted, it's clear that trouble haunts the revellers. A ghost of the past, rattling its chains, or a contemporary Scrooge?