When some members of a local church set up a Christmas nativity scene in the local town square with the permission of the local town council, a lawyer starts legal proceedings against the town, alleging that the display violates the separation of church and state. The court battles and public outcry which ensue are described in the fictional work The Judge who Stole Christmas by Randy Singer.
To a non-American reader, the story is filled with peculiarities, including the law in question, the way in which an unqualified law student is permitted to represent a party, the way in which the judge conducts herself, and the way in which imprisonment seems to be used as a casual instrument of behaviour control rather than as a terrible measure of last resort. Even the degree of reverence the characters show at the nativity scene seems peculiar for Protestant Christians.
A battle over a complex legal doctrine seems an unpromising story line for an entertaining novel, but remarkably the author succeeds in making the story thoroughly engaging. It would have been quite easy but far less interesting to present a case of good against evil; instead, each of the characters has flaws which prevent the reader from fully identifying with any. The book makes a good Christmas story while at the same time helping to educate the reader about the US laws relating to church and state.