The Parrot Who Knew Too Much

Tess Calloway asked for a quiet Christmas. She got a crate. Inside the crate is Copperhead, an African Grey parrot with a vocabulary in three languages, a grudge against wool coats, and a dead smuggler's last secret locked in his excellent memory. The note taped to the lid says only: He knows things. Don't let him near the radio. Snowed in at a rental cabin above Carvell's Notch, a mountain town buried in its beloved Founders' Lantern Festival, Tess would like to believe this is somebody's idea of a joke. Then the bird starts reciting coordinates. Then a quietly competent cartographer from the town's Historical Society knocks on her door, asking what her Christmas present has said. And then the strangers in good coats arrive, the well-funded kind who have been hunting Copperhead for twenty years and know exactly what he's worth. A warm, witty holiday treasure hunt with no gore, no cliffhanger cheats, and a bird who steals every scene because Copperhead knows and he's just not telling until he's sure she's the right one to tell.