Review: WINTER OF SECRETS, Vicki Delany

Poisoned Pen Press 2009
264 pages
My copy was an uncorrected proof kindly sent to me by the author.

It's Christmas Eve at Trafalgar in the Kootenay area of British Columbia and there's lots of snow. It's the storm of the decade and the roads are icy. Constable Molly (Moonlight) Smith, recently off probation, is on duty overnight, and it promises to be a busy one. Just after midnight a car goes into the river.

The occupants are tourists, a couple of young men staying at a local B&B with friends. They've come to Trafalgar for the skiing. They are both pronounced dead when the car is retrieved from the river. The only trouble is that the pathologist discovers a day or two later that the passenger had been dead when the car went into the water.

I enjoyed renewing my acquaintance with Molly Smith, her mother Lucky, and her colleagues. Molly has moved on a bit since the previous title in the series: VALLEY OF THE LOST. She's now left home and living above the baker's shop. In WINTER OF SECRETS we learn what a good skier she is, and she is certainly becoming a good police woman. It was a nice solid read.

Last year the author Vicki Delany was a guest on my blog. In that post Vicki told me that WINTER OF SECRETS was a departure from her usual method of writing, an experiment she says that she won't repeat.

My rating: 4.3

Review on Reactions to Reading
Vicki Delany's website
Read the first chapter of WINTER OF SECRETS (pdf)
Vicki Delany blogs at Type M for Murder

My review of VALLEY OF THE LOST