Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Canada. Show all posts

Monday, February 12, 2018

The Storm Murders

Farrow, John. The Storm Murders. New York: Minatour. 2015. Print.



First Sentences:
Sudden on the windshield, the sunlight was blinding.
As the squad car emerged from a canyon formed by towering dense spruce onto a broad plateau of farmland, the officers inside the vehicle snapped down their visors.














Description:

A chilling murder mystery for the sub-zero cold weather we are having.

An isolated Canadian farmhouse in the dead of winter. Inside, the bodies of an elderly couple are discovered. No tracks leading up to the house or away. Murder? Double suicide? Or maybe the killer is still in the house? And one more thing: each body is missing a finger. Surely a job for Emile Cinq-Mars in John Farrow's riveting thriller, The Storm Murders.

But maybe this is more than merely one random killing. Turns out there are similar cases under investigation in the United States. Cinq-Mars finds himself working with a mysterious figure called Dupree from the New Orleans Police, a hotel security man named Flores, the FBI agent Dreher, and even his much-younger wife Sandra to unravel this and other related cases. Can all (any?) of them be trusted?

The plot is exquisitely intricate the writing superbly taut, the characters hard-working and dedicated but somehow suspicious. And the murders continue to occur, including one in Cinq-Mars' hotel itself. Even his wife is kidnapped, but are the good guys or the bad guys behind this episode?

Right up to the final pages the outcome of so many mysteries is in doubt, as well as the fates of many of these characters whom you have grown to know, respect, and certainly don't want to see die (or revealed as a killer).

I'm new to author John Farrow, but definitely will be reading his other crime novels. Turns out The Storm Murders is the first in a new Cinq-Mars trilogy, so I am ecstatic about two more deliciously dark thrillers to come.


Happy reading. 



Fred

If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Sjöwall, Maj and Per Wahlöö. Roseanna

Classic police procedural novel trying to methodically identify the body and then the murderer of a woman found floating in a lake in Sweden. (previously reviewed here)

Mankell, Henning. The Pyramid
Early mystery stories about Kurt Wallander as he methodically solves his first crimes in Sweden. (previously reviewed here)