The Christmas season has arrived in Lower Lockwood, and the Fairway Players are busy rehearsing their festive holiday production of Jack and the Beanstalk to raise money for a new church roof. But despite the season, goodwill is distinctly lacking among the amateur theater enthusiasts with petty rivalries, a possibly asbestos-filled beanstalk, and some perennially absent players behind the scenes. Of course, there's also the matter of the dead body...

When she attends a fundraiser and art festival with her date, Case Donnelly, who is awaiting his PI license, Athena Spencer puts him to good use when the body of a disgraced photographer turns up during a nature walk.

As Ramadan nears, Sadiq and his friends form the Money Makers Club to plan a community fundraiser, an iftar, but when Zaza stops participating, Sadiq gets upset with him.

"Hazel 'Hazy' Bloom uses her tomorrow power--her ability to see visions of things that happen one day in the future--to try to convince her parents she's ready for a pet iguana"--

A young girl's characteristic bossiness makes it hard for her to find a partner for a class project, until she decides to befriend a new kid and share well-intentioned, if haphazard, advice on how he can best fit in.

"When Melanie and Lucy attend a beach bonfire, a local landlord is found dead after apparently choking on a piece of salt water taffy. Melanie, who was known to have a contentious relationship with the victim, is quickly skewered as the prime suspect. But Lucy is determined to prove her friend's innocence before the real killer coasts free." --

"The library's big fund-raiser leaves director Lindsey Norris booked for trouble when she finds Paula, the library's newest hire, crouched over the new library board president's dead body. As the plot thickens, Lindsey must catch the real killer before the book closes on Paula's future"-- Lindsey Norris and her staff are gearing up for the Briar Creek Library's annual Dinner in the Stacks fund-raiser. It's a booklover's dream and the library's biggest...

Flossie persuades her neighbor, Willow, to help her, Billy, and other classmates to make crafts to sell at a fundraiser to buy holiday gifts for needy children, but problems soon arise.

Jasmine Arroyo loves volunteering with her veterinarian mom at the Kew Gardens Animal Shelter. When Jasmine learns that the shelter will have to turn away new animals unless it can raise funds to expand, she is determined to help in any way she can. The shelter is throwing a fundraiser and the girls decide to create a kids craft corner. They can draw pictures of all the shelter animals to help them find their forever homes.

When a deadly bomb goes off during a climate change debate, librarian and event coordinator Jackie Santoro becomes the prime suspect. Her motive, according to Detective Avery Wick: to avenge the suicide of her prominent father, who was accused of crimes by a city councilman attending the event. He can't exonerate her even after an extremist group takes responsibility for the bombing and continues to attack San Antonio's public spaces. As Jackie proceeds...