Eric Beckman, a mind-reading private investigator, is spending Christmas in snowy Vermont with his wife and daughter. He needs a break from solving cases, but the townspeople convince him to look into the village mystery: Every holiday season, someone switches the baby Jesus with one of the other figures in the town's nativity scene. With the help of his ten-year-old daughter, also a mind reader, he soon learns that some of the residents of the small town are not who-or even what-they seem to be. There's something supernatural going on in Newburn, Vermont. His investigation causes an escalation of strange happenings, and soon, swapped manger figures are the least of the town's worries. If Beckman can't adjust his view of the world-force himself to believe in things he never thought possible-the Christmas vacation could turn out to be his family's last. A Mind Reader's Christmas may be read as a standalone book or as Book Four in the Eric Beckman series.