In the Winter

The Dead of Winter
Rennie Airth
Set in London and rural England in 1944, Airth's fine third mystery to feature ex-Scotland Yard inspector John Madden (after The Blood-Dimmed Tide) shows how five years of war and an overstretched police force have brought 'a new dimension to lawbreaking,' with a serious rise in murders, thefts and extortion. Even decent citizens aren't above black- market dealings. The murder of Rosa Nowak, a young Polish woman, on a deserted London street during a blackout appears to be another act of random violence. Since Nowak worked on Madden's farm, his reputation ensures that his former colleagues thoroughly investigate the case, which leads to continental Europe, stolen diamonds and a string of murders, including that of a Jewish furrier. Airth takes a perceptive look at the frayed emotions of his fully realized characters as he carefully lays the groundwork for the next book in this rewarding series. Publishers Weekly Review; May 2009.


Winter Run
Robert Ashcom
Rural Virginia in the 1940s was a magical place into which modernity had not yet crept. This attracted city dwellers Charles and Gretchen, who moved there after World War II with their precocious son, Charlie. Charlie was inquisitive about everything, especially nature. He had a knack with animals, almost uncannily knew what they were thinking. He also had a knack for seeming more grown-up than he was, which endeared him to the adults of the community. Especially since there were few other children around, the adults took care of Charlie--he was always around, and they didn't mind. Charlie also had a knack for mixing equally well with the black folks who worked on the farm and in the town, along with the white landowners and the professor-patriarch of the community. Ashcom creates a very sweet, almost mystical tale of a boy who was amazed by what nature brought him, his growing up, and his understanding that all things, even life as he knows it, are passing.
Booklist Review; September 2002.

Winter Study
Nevada Barr
In bestseller Barr's chilling 14th mystery thriller to feature National Park Service ranger Anna Pigeon (after 2005's Hard Truth), Anna joins the team of Winter Study, a research project intended to study the wolves and moose of Michigan's Isle Royale National Park, the setting for 1994's A Superior Death. Complicating the study is Bob Menechinn, an untrustworthy Homeland Security officer assigned to shadow the research. Crowded into inhospitable lodgings and persecuted by unrelenting cold, Anna is far from her comfort zone as nature turns awry with a series of bizarre events. The team stumbles upon the tracks--and the mutilated victim--of a preternaturally large, unidentified beast, and local packs of wolves descend on human- populated areas, a behavior out of step with their species. The campfire legends of youth metastasize into adult fears as Anna must piece together a connection between these anomalies while guarding herself from the strangers around her. Barr's visceral descriptions of the winter cold nicely complement the paranoia that follows the appearance of the mythic monsters at play.
Publishers Weekly Review; February 2008.

Blackthorn Winter
Sarah Challis
When her famous and unfaithful husband is sentenced to prison for fraud and divorce proceedings are under way, Claudia Barron eschews the London scene and moves to a modest cottage in the Dorset hills. Anonymity is her goal, but Claudia quickly discovers the alacrity of village gossip: her previous life soon becomes the focus of discussions in upper-class dining rooms and the local pub. Aided by her two grown children, Lila, a vivacious free spirit who lives in New York, and Jerome, just returning from a year in India and his own personal tragedy, Claudia forges a new identity in her adopted village. She makes ends meet first by picking mushrooms, then by cooking at the village school; she even manages to find a couple of romantic interests, as her spunky attitude attracts both a local dandy and the quiet widower next door. Inspired by the farms, fields, and stables she so obviously loves, Challis has crafted another charming village tale spiced with just the right amounts of near tragedy and romance.
Booklist Review; September 2004.

The Hounds of Winter
James Magnuson
As brooding and lethal as a Wisconsin winter storm, this taut thriller puts small-town relations into frightening relief. College senior Maya Neisen arrives a bit early to a Christmas reconciliation at a cabin in her father's hometown of Black Hawk, Wis., and is brutally murdered just minutes before her father, New York literary agent David Neisen, arrives. Finding his daughter slain, he hastily dials 911, then, hearing the screen door slam, chases a figure in a blue ski mask into the woods, to no avail. Returning to the cabin, he is confronted by sheriff Doug Danacek, who, after 35 years, still thinks David could have saved Danacek's brother from drowning. Noting Danacek's pants are wet up to his knees, and convinced that Danacek killed Maya as payback, David flees, steals the sheriff's Jeep and drives off, determined to find Maya's killer. Scrambling from pillar to post in the frozen wilderness, trying to find help among his old friends, David slowly uncovers a conspiracy among the denizens of the tiny, heavily Scandinavian backwater. While not terrific on the mechanics of the chase, Magnuson (Windfall; Ghost Dancing; etc.) keeps the psychological tension high, right up to the satisfying denouement. Publishers Weekly Review; July 2005.

The Winter Vault
Anne Michaels
Profound loss, desolation and rebuilding are the literal and metaphoric themes of Michaels's exquisite second novel (after Fugitive Pieces). Avery Escher is a Canadian engineer recently moved to a houseboat on the Nile with his new wife, Jean, in 1964. Avery's part of a team of engineers trying to salvage Abu Simbel, which is about to be flooded by the new Aswan dam. His wife, Jean, meanwhile, carries with her childhood memories of flooded villages and the heavy absence of her mother, who died when she was young. Now, the sight of the entire Nubian nation being evacuated from their native land before it's flooded affects both Avery and Jean intensely. Jean's pregnancy seems a possible redemption, but their daughter is stillborn, and Jean falls into despair, shunning the former intimacy of her marriage. When the couple returns to Canada, they set up separate lives and another man enters the picture. Michaels is especially impressive at making a rundown of construction materials or the contents of a market as evocative as the shared moments between two young lovers. A tender love story set against an intriguing bit of history is handled with uncommon skill.
Publishers Weekly Review; March 2009.

The Edge of Winter
Luanne Rice
Rhode Island teenager Mickey and her best friend, Jenna, have shared a love of bird watching, but now they are growing apart as Jenna becomes part of the cool crowd and Mickey clings to her love of nature. She also has to deal with the finality of her parents' divorce and her burgeoning feelings for an outcast surfer. When Mickey finds a snowy owl at Refuge Beach, she brings together her mother and the park ranger Tim O'Casey, a World War II hero and raptor expert. When the owl is injured, and the beach is threatened by a developer who is attempting to dig up a sunken U-boat that is a treasured part of the community's history, a bond forms between adults and teens as they try to save the owl and the refuge, and maybe even heal themselves. Once again Rice weaves together an involving tale of love, loss, and redemption, then deepens the story with a resonant appreciation for nature. Booklist Review; January 2007.

The Winter Queen
Jane Stevenson
Exiled in 17th-century Amsterdam, Elizabeth of Bohemia, sister of England's King Charles I and widow of the dethroned Elector Palatine, spends her days in an agony of rumor and worried uncertainty about her children, who are scattered across Europe. Pelagius van Overmeer, ex-slave and formerly a prince of the Yoruba tribe of Oyo, comes to her attention as a learned and pious man whose arcane skill as a seer may give assurance of her sons' safety. Aside from such insights, Pelagius gives Elizabeth his companionship and his love, and when they secretly marry, he is installed in Elizabeth's household. History mentions no royal prince of Africa, no slave lover, and no black physician in the life of the Winter Queen, but readers will be glad to believe that Pelagius existed for her as they read this well-crafted, moody portrait of royal striving and human need. While this novel is not as thickly plotted as Dorothy Dunnett's masterly Niccolo series, fans of Dunnett will enjoy Stevenson's (London Bridges) complex characterization and marvelous rendering of the dark ambiance of the Dutch Golden Age. Readers will be impatient for the second book in a projected trilogy so that they can find out what will happen to the secret harbored in Middleburg. Highly recommended for most fiction collections.
Library Journal Review; October 2002.