Winter is the perfect time to explore mysteries. The shortened days and snow are the perfect invitation to curl up with a good “who done it.” Winter, snowstorms, ice, and cold can also be used in mysteries to help shape the story – not only can it be the setting, but winter may also influence the action and can be an important element in murder.

The Alpine Pursuit
Mary Daheim (2004)
Mystery Daheim

It’s easy to feel stuck in small-town Alpine, Washington, especially during heavy snow falls and stinging winds. During the opening night of the Alpine Dramatic Club’s production of The Outcast, one of its cast members, Hans Berenger, dies when a fake shooting scene ends up using real bullets. Newspaper editor/publisher Emma Lord tries to find a motive, while her sometimes boyfriend, Sheriff Milo Dodge must find out who committed the crime. Meanwhile, snow is blowing and accumulating at rapid paces, closing roads and threatening to bring the town to a stand still. Making matters worse is that everyone in town hated the deceased, who as the dean of students at Skykomish Community College had numerous enemies. Lovers of small-town cozies and eccentric characters will have much fun reading this winter mystery.

The Big Snow
David Park (2002)
Fiction Park

This book contains four short stories and a novella, all set in Northern Ireland during a snowstorm in 1963 that shuts down the area. A man reflecting on his infidelity while his wife is dying, a young man’s attraction to an older, wealthy woman, an older woman buying a wedding dress, and a principal having an affair with one of his teachers are the subjects of the short stories. The novella, “The Big Snow”, features a new detective investigating the death of a prostitute and her involvement with a prominent councilman. Park uses the unprecedented snowfall to show how it transforms the characters as they deal with their varied lives.

Cold
John Smolens (2001)
Mystery Smolens

Norman Haas has been convicted of assaulting his girlfriend, Noel, and is prison serving a lengthy sentence thanks to her father’s power. While on work detail, he escapes during a blizzard and ends up nearly frozen on the isolated property of Liesl Tiomenen, a widow who while sympathetic towards Norman, also feels she must turn him in. Abandoning Liesl in the snow after she tries to bring him into town on foot because of heavy snow, Norman flees and picks up Noel and her three-year-old daughter, Lorraine, and the three hole up in a lodge. Local sheriff Del Maki brings Norman’s brother and Noel’s father to the lodge to try to find Norman, and instead three of the six characters end up dead. Full of intrigue and suspense, this novel set in Michigan’s cold Upper Peninsula is sure to grip mystery fans.

Cold Granite
Stuart MacBride (2005)
Mystery MacBride
Paperback Mystery MacBride

Detective Sergeant Logan McRae has just returned to the Aberdeen police force after being stabbed in the line of duty and is still in a foul mood. Unfortunately, it is December in Scotland, and the cold, dark rainy days of December matches McRae’s mood. On his first day back the detective has to investigate the killing of a three-year-old, and a serial killer is soon suspected when the count of murdered or missing children in Aberdeen rises within days. To top things off, local reporters appear to be getting inside information, and McRae is suspected of the leaks. During the end sequence when McRae finally find the killer, the cold and never ending wetness of the winter causes havoc to the investigation. For fans of Scottish crime writers, including Val McDermid, Denise Mina, and Ian Rankin, the series continues with Dying Light.

The Dead of Winter
Paula Gosling (1996)
Mystery Gosling

Set in Blackwater Bay, Michigan during a cold January, the ice fishing season has just opened. When a dead body is found under the ice of a fishing hole, Sheriff Matt Gabriel discovers a stranger to the town has been shot in the head – a stranger who turns out to be an ex-con with mob connections. When a student disappears during a blizzard, home economic teacher Jess Gibbons decides to investigate along with Matt. The dramatic conclusion to this puzzling mystery comes to a brilliant end during the town’s annual Ice Festival, when ice hides a lot of treachery.

The Dead of Winter
Patricia Hall (1995)
Mystery Hall

The bitter Yorkshire Dales winter is the setting for this English mystery. Chief Inspector Michael Thackeray has been called in to investigate the death of Linda Wright, who is found drowned in her car when it goes off the road during a winter storm. It is soon apparent that her death was not due to the winter weather, but that she was murdered. Linda worked for the successful Cheetham and Moore estate company, a company Thackeray is investigating for mortgage fraud. This psychological mystery has graphic depictions of the bleak, snowbound English moors, and characters who are also cold and murderous.

The Hounds of Winter
James Magnuson (2005)
Fiction Magnuson

College senior Maya Neisen has returned to her father’s cabin in Black Hawk, Wisconsin for Christmas. When her father, literary agent David Neisen arrives, he finds Maya has just been murdered. While on the phone to 911, a figure in a blue ski mask runs down the stairs and into the snowy woods. Although David chases after him, thick blowing snow hides the killer’s tracks. Local sheriff Doug Danacek knows David, and has bitter feelings for him because David was present years before when Danacek’s brother drowned. When David sees the sheriff arrive to the cabin with pants wet up to the knees, David flees into the frozen wilderness and tries to find Maya’s killer himself.

In the Bleak Midwinter
Julia Spencer-Fleming (2002)
Mystery Spencer-Fleming Audiobook CD Spencer-Fleming

Although born and raised in Virginia, Clare Fergusson is now a resident of Millers Kill, New York, a small upstate town that has ordained her priest of St. Alban’s Episcopal Church. When a baby is left on the church doorstep with a note explaining that he should be raised by two of Clare’s parishioners, Clare decides to call the local police chief, Russ Van Alstyne. During a snowstorm and bitter cold, the two soon find the baby’s mother, Katie McWhorter, beaten and dead of hypothermia. It is a good thing that Clare is a army veteran and a helicopter pilot, as she soon becomes an amateur detective helping Russ solve the crimes. Believable secondary characters and a great local setting help this mystery stay interesting. This is the first mystery of the Reverend Clare Fergusson series, and the series gets better with each addition.

The Lake of Dead Languages
Carol Goodman (2002)
Fiction Goodman

Jane Hudson returns twenty years later to her upstate New York alma mater, the Heart Lake School for Girls. As a scholarship student, Jane was close to her roommates Lucy and Deirdre, and Lucy’s brother, Matt. At the same time, the group became influenced by their Latin teacher, Helen Chamber. Their friendships ended in the winter of their senior year, when Deirdre committed suicide and Lucy and Matt drowned in the freezing school lake. These days, Jane is the Latin teacher of the school, and someone has found her missing high school journal and starts to re-enact her past. Lots of snow and winter storms, ice cracking on the lake, and other winter drama help propel this mystery. Goodman has gone on to write other mysteries, all set in upstate New York.

The Man Who Tried to Get Away
Stephen Donaldson (2004)
Mystery Donaldson

This is the third mystery novel in the “Man who” series by Donaldson. PI “Brew” Axbrewder learns that a local crime kingpin has put a bounty on him. When his partner and sometimes girlfriend Ginny Fistoulari, urges him to skip town and take temporary security jobs at Deerskin Lodge, trouble starts to happen. The lodge is home to “Murder on Cue” where amateur sleuths meet to solve a pretend murder. During a winter storm, the players are left stranded, especially when someone cuts the phone lines, disables all the available transportation out of the lodge, and starts killing players. For mystery readers who like hard-boiled PI mysteries.

Smilla’s Sense of Snow
Peter Hoeg (1993)
Fiction Hoeg
DVD Feature “S”

When six-year-old Isaiah Christensen falls from his Copenhagen roof, Smilla Jaspersen, an Inuit/Greenlander who is an expert on snow and ice, and also the boy’s neighbor, tries to get the police to investigate his death. When the police refuse to get involved, Smilla launches her own investigation, which takes her from shipyards, powerful Danish corporations, and back to her icy Greenland coast. This dark thriller features a strong female character who ends up saving her life because of her knowledge of ice.

Sun Storm
Asa Larsson (2006)
Fiction Larsson

The remote Swedish town of Kiruna is the childhood home to tax attorney Rebecca Martinsson. An old friend of hers, Viktor Strandgard, started a fundamentalist church called The Strength of All Our Strength and was revered in the community, until his brutally murdered body was found on the floor of the church. His sister, the troubled Sanna, is charged with his murder, and enlists her old friend, Rebecca as her lawyer. When Rebecca returns to Kiruna, she must not only help her old friend, but relive her past in Kiruna and her past connection with the church. The remote Swedish location filled with lots of snow and bitterly cold temperatures creates a dark mood matching the strangeness of the church and its members. For fans of Henning Mankell, Karin Fossum, and Arnaldur Indridason.

SG
Adult Services Librarian
Tompkins County Public Library
January 2007