Book Description

An elf living in Santa's Workshop-recently retired from productive service at the venerable age of twelve to become a full-time sculptor-lands a contract with Workshop's highest authority to create a statue honoring their long-absent founder and patron saint, Santa Claus.Unfortunately this elf, who wishes to remain anonymous, doesn't believe in Santa Claus. When X carves a controversial monument that ostensibly exalts but slyly defames both Claus and Workshop government she meets Tchotchke, a young orphan with a talent for finding whatever he looks for. Tchotchke's connections to a heretical underground organization, the Anti-Claus Movement, allow Movement members to persuade X to search throughout the arctic iceberg cavern for proof of Santa Claus's death in the hope of inspiring a popular uprising. What she uncovers with Tchotchke's assistance, however, is evidence of an even deeper conspiracy behind Claus's historical absence. With both Workshop authorities and the heretics at their heels, X and Tchotchke escape Workshop's floating confines and use Tchotchke's talent to gather evidence of Santa Claus's whereabouts at locations scattered across Europe and North America. On the way they face the dreaded Krampus in a bar, learn of Claus's origins as a young Catholic bishop, get worshipped by a tribe of elves posing as cats, and unwittingly foment an elfin revolution in an urban mall that threatens to tear apart not only an entire society, but also their friendship. Ultimately, the answers that X discovers in her search for the secret of Santa Claus only lead to even more difficult questions as her swiftly approaching demise forces her to choose between life or the one elf she can't imagine life without.