Murder at the snowy wedding

Alex Pine writes a series of police procedural novels set in Cumbria featuring his detective James Walker. The Winter Killer is the third of these and I review a previous one here. Each book is set during the Christmas period in successive years. This means that the books read very much like standalone novels because the author has to include backstory to explain what has happened in the past twelve months. I think this is a clever idea if an author is releasing an annual novel but it does mean that the story has to link to the season in some way.

In The Winter Killer the story is set on New Year’s Eve at a posh hotel where a wedding is taking place. A bridesmaid goes missing at the wedding and is eventually found, dead, on the premises. Walker is fortunate in that one of his team was a guest at the wedding and overheard some interesting conversations but his problem is that it is snowing and that means that the hotel is liable to be cut off and that the investigation is going to be hard to manage.

This is a fast paced police procedural where all the suspects are available at the hotel and because of the snow they are likely to stay there. It also means that there is a murderer amongst the guests and that the police need to make every effort to find them before someone else ends up dead.

I thought that the plot was good and the atmosphere well done. There are plenty of viable suspects and lots of secrets to be uncovered. The investigation was the main focus of the story but the glimpses we saw into the lives of the detectives added to the enjoyment. A good read.