Winter Chill Is a HOT Read...

Winter Chill Title:  Winter Chill
Author:  Joanne Fluke
Format:  ERC
Length:  352 pages
Publisher:  Kensington
Rating:  5 Stars

The moment Marian Larsen sees the patrol car stop outside her house, she feels a shiver of foreboding. The news is even worse than she feared. Marian's husband and young daughter have been in a snowmobile crash. Dan is paralysed and Laura is dead, her body broken on the icy ground.

. . .With A Chilling Secret

Friends and colleagues in Marian's Minnesota home town rally around to try and ease her grief. But soon there are more horrible accidents. Then the rumours start--that these are not coincidences at all, that someone is picking off victims one by one. And as winter deepens, the search for answers will reveal a killer whose blood runs colder than the blinding snow. . .  -Goodreads







My Thoughts

Joanne Fluke, 'The Queen of Cozy', has gone back to her little known roots as a writer of psychological thrillers.  The resulting Winter Chill, shows her to be just as much at home on the darker side of mystery as she is in the realm of her trademark 'feel good' sleuthing.

The story opens on the scene of a terrible snow mobile accident.  Dan Larson has been rendered paralyzed and his young daughter, Laura, is dead.
Because Marian, Laura's mother and Dan's wife, is at home at the time of the tragedy, she is not introduced into the story until later.

The first half of the book deals with the Larson's grief and the restructuring of their family.  Readers really get to know Dan and Marian as people, and fully experience the depth and breath of the family's loss.
Marian is doing her best to be strong for Dan, put on a brave face for her friends, and the students that she has the privilege of teaching at the local elementary school.
She misses her daughter terribly and is barely able to keep her emotions together from day to day.

Until the note...

The book starts to take a markedly strange tone when Dan finds a note to Marian from Laura.
After the first note, Marian's happiness makes Dan hopeful.  Against his better judgement, Dan writes another letter and so begins Marian's obsession.
 
While Marian is searching for notes from beyond, Dan is having walking dreams, and trying to adjust to work,
At about 70%, the murders begin.
All children or people close to the Larsons.
Dan and Marian suspect each other....and then the cliff.

This is a great book.  A lot strange and hard to describe, but well worth the read.
It starts like a cozy and ends on a very big cliff.
Amazing!

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