Winter of Secrets by Vicki Delany, a Mysterious Review.

Review: Sergeant John Winters and Constable Molly Smith are simply trying to keep order in their small town when a blizzard hits and tragedy strikes in Winter of Secrets, the third mystery in this series by Vicki Delany.

It is the Christmas holiday season in this small picturesque, peaceful mountain village. University students have come for two weeks of fun, skiing, drinking, and carousing. Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth and five of his college friends, plus his younger high school sister, Mary, are among those visiting from Ontario, having rented rooms at the Glacier Chalet, Mrs. Carmine's cozy bed-and-breakfast. Although there is always snow in December, drawing the skiing crowds, this Christmas Eve there a blizzard descends upon the town. There are stalled cars, fender benders, and traffic snarls all associated with stormy white-outs. But it soon gets worse when a car misses a turn and skids into the icy waters of the local river. Jason and his best friend Ewan are found in the car, dead. They had been inseparable friends since they were children. Now they're both dead, killed by tragedy on Christmas Eve. The police and medics on the scene all agree this was a terrible accident. When the coroner arrives to examine the bodies, however, he finds that Ewan died twenty hours or more before the accident, the result of a blow to the head. This came as a shock not only to the other students who claim to know nothing about it, but to John and Molly as well. What had happened to Ewan? Why was Jason driving around with a corpse in his car? Molly and John are thrust into an investigation where privileged kids indulging in recreational drugs and sexual promiscuity are of the norm. Their holiday plans have to be put on hold while they sort out who did what and why.

Winter of Secrets paints a grim, often disturbing picture of a cross-section of today's youth, their disregard for other's feelings, seemingly perverse satisfaction in seeing a disliked person being hurt. There are also the attitudes of the distant rich, including the Wyatt-Yarmouth family, towards the local poor. The contrast of these characters with the warmth and good spirit typically associated with Christmas is jarring. The mystery surrounding the death of Ewan, however, will keep the reader's attention to the very end as Molly, with some help from her mother Lucky, unravels the twisted threads of this case.

Special thanks to guest reviewer Betty of The Betz Review for contributing her review of Winter of Secrets.

Acknowledgment: Poisoned Pen Press provided an ARC of Winter of Secrets for this review.

Valley of the Lost
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), February 2009
ISBN-13: 9781590585955; ISBN-10: 159058595X

Among the Departed
Poisoned Pen Press (Hardcover), May 2011
ISBN-13: 9781590589243; ISBN-10: 1590589246

Winter of Secrets

A Molly Smith Mystery by Vicki Delany