THE ALPINE WINTER
Daheim, Mary Ballantine (320 pp.) $25.00 | Nov. 29, 2011 978-0-345-50259-9
The Lords celebrate Christmas. Emma Lord’s holiday season is getting off to a bumpy start. Her brother Ben, a priest, thinks she and her divorced love, Sheriff Milo Dodge, are heading down a sinful path. Her son Adam, another priest, is overdue from Alaska, where he’s snowbound. Mitch Laskey, her employee at the weekly Advocate, needs time off to hunt for his son, who’s just escaped from prison for the second time. Emma thinks things couldn’t get much worse, but of course they can. When hikers find a body moldering in a cave on Mount Sawyer, Roy Everson, the local postmaster, is convinced it’s his mama, Myrtle, who disappeared 16 years ago. The body turns out to be male, but that doesn’t stop Roy from carrying on and Emma from digging away at the only clue to its identity, a Saint Augustine medal. The more Emma digs, the more she gets in the way of the sheriff, who knows that kissing her won’t stop her, but can’t resist anyway. The town gossips go wild. The Lord priests take differing views on the romance. Someone is so upset by Emma’s snooping that her carport is set on fire. Even worse, she’s attacked and almost killed before the sheriff steps in and rescues her, the perp is identified and Roy learns what really became of Myrtle. Daheim (The Alpine Vengeance, 2011, etc.) keeps this longrunning series lively with generous helpings of small-town chatter, charm and middle-age romance. (Agent: Maureen Moran)
SCOTCH MIST
Darrell, Elizabeth Severn House (208 pp.) $27.95 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-0-7278-8069-7 What else would you expect on Guy Fawkes Day but an explosion? Every year, the British military base in Germany commemorates the 5th of November with a huge bonfire that elicits oohs and aahs from service personnel and their families. This year, a battalion of Drumdorran Fusiliers arrives just in time to be piped in for the celebration, but the screeching of the bagpipes is drowned out by an unplanned explosion that sends debris flying, badly burns an officer’s young son and kills the Pipe Major’s wife. Although the garrison commander is away at a conference, Max Rydal and Tom Black of 26 Section, Special Investigative Branch, Military Police, are on hand to sort through the chaos. Were terrorists targeting the base? Why were the Pipe Major and his wife living apart? Did any of the soldiers responsible for setting the bonfire add extra charges to humiliate a tyrannical officer? A few nights later, there’s more 2064
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chaos when someone sets fire to the hedges outside the mess. The base erupts, with battalions from the West Wiltshire Regiment battling the Royal Cumberland Rifles, the Royal Engineers feuding with the Royal Signals and everyone ganging up on the poor Scots. Meanwhile, Tom also must deal with his teen daughters’ embarrassment at his wife’s unplanned pregnancy, and Max must overcome his jealousy of his friend Clare’s handsome overnight guest. A reassessment of everyone’s alibi resolves matters, but not before more mayhem sets Max up for convalescent leave. Less fun than an hour-long bagpipe recital, and no more serious competition to Lee Childs’ military police stories than Indian Summer (2011) or its ilk.
EXTINCTION
Davis, Carol Anne Creme de la Crime (224 pp.) $28.95 | Dec. 1, 2011 978-1-78029-013-3 The amorous adventures of a sociopathic Bristol psychotherapist and his shrinking list of patients. On top of his own practice, psychologist Adam Neave volunteers at the bereavement center at Weston-superMare. It’s a great way to meet fragile women and talk himself into their confidence before he drugs and rapes them. Sometimes Adam can’t wait for the next eligible patient, so he goes out on the town looking for prey. Lately he’s graduated from rape to murder (his late wife Helen’s death was originally something of a one-off), sometimes accidentally doping his victims to death, sometimes adopting a more handson approach. Det. Supt. Bill Winston, duly suspicious, sics undercover officer Olivia Marsden on him as a new widow. His plans backfire, however, when Olivia finds herself falling for the man she’s supposed to be trapping. Things aren’t going much better for Beth, Adam’s partner at the bereavement center, whose boyfriend suddenly turns aloof and critical, or for Nicholas Neave, the brother who’s tried in vain to interest the law in Helen Neave’s death. And they’re going even worse for the innocent relatives of Brandon Petrie, 16, a cold, manipulative patient whom anyone but Adam would instantly diagnose as an apprentice sociopath. In fact, no one in the greater Bristol area seems capable of having a nice day, and it’s easy to see why not. Not even the most brilliantly repellent earlier work by Davis (Kiss It Away, 2004, etc.) quite prepares you for this seven-course banquet of violence, sex and violent sex.
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