The Killer in the Snow

By Alex Pine

Crime

Review 

A 2022 Top Rated Read

It's been a year since DI James Walker solved the Christmas serial killer case and life is returning to normal. However, the peace is about to be shattered when a local family is brutally murdered at their isolated Cumbrian farmhouse. What makes the case even more puzzling is that 24 years earlier the previous owners were also murdered and their baby mysteriously disappeared. DI Walker is up against it as he struggles to connect the crimes and solve both cases.

I really enjoyed this book and thought the story was great. I read the previous book, The Christmas Killer, a couple of years ago and found the writing rather clumsy and stilted. Since then there's been a huge improvement and conversations now flow more naturally with less repetitiveness and 'padding'.

I found myself completely immersed in the plot and its fantastic characters. The snowy Christmas setting was fabulous and added to the tense atmosphere. It was highly entertaining and the perfect winter read.

★★★★★

• Paperback: 400 pages
• Publisher: Avon
• Publication Year: 2021
• Author: Alex Pine
• Genre: Crime

Synopsis

The first fall of snow can be fatal…

A year has passed since DI James Walker cracked his biggest case yet, and he’s hoping for peace and quiet this festive season.

But across the fells, a local farmer returns home on Christmas Eve to find footsteps in the fresh snow that lead down to his unused basement – and no footsteps leading away. Days later, his body is found, alongside those of his wife and daughter.

Without a neighbour for miles, there are no witnesses and little evidence. And the crime scene has strange echoes of another terrible murder committed at the farmhouse, twenty years earlier…

James knows that to catch this killer, he needs to solve a case that has long since gone cold…