Cold Hunter's Moon

Publishers Weekly

Wear a parka and snow goggles while you read this frosty and blood-spattered first novel. Set in the north woods of Wisconsin, the tale pits widower sheriff Lark Swenson and his inamorata, state police officer Lacey Smith, against a relentless killer who murdered two U.W. coeds three years apart and hid the bodies in a snow-covered marsh on the property of John and Ann Ranson in Big Oak, Wis. The investigation bogs down when someone starts taking potshots at Ann, and even shoots out the sheriff's windows. Police procedure and medical terminology are spot on, as is the aura of winter in the woods with hunters (of both deer and humans) zipping around on snowmobiles. The burgeoning love relationship between Lark and Lacey is sweetly developed and eerily set against the cruelly abusive partnership of Lonnie Chevsky and his battered wife, Betty. The plot races along with the threat of more murders heightened by a bone-chilling blizzard. To give more focus to the story, it is set in Thanksgiving week, with characters leaving and visiting, deer hunting still in season and the early winter weather covering all leads with a patina of ice. Lark and Lacey keep fighting their developing attraction, despite getting thrown together at every turn. Some of the rationalizations for their togetherness are a little weak but, overall, the story not only coheres but holds the reader's interest like glue. This is a great read for a night in front of the fireplace. (Jan. 14) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Wear a parka and snow goggles while you read this frosty and blood-spattered first novel. Set in the north woods of Wisconsin, the tale pits widower sheriff Lark Swenson and his inamorata, state police officer Lacey Smith, against a relentless killer who murdered two U.W. coeds three years apart and hid the bodies in a snow-covered marsh on the property of John and Ann Ranson in Big Oak, Wis. The investigation bogs down when someone starts taking potshots at Ann, and even shoots out the sheriff's windows. Police procedure and medical terminology are spot on, as is the aura of winter in the woods with hunters (of both deer and humans) zipping around on snowmobiles. The burgeoning love relationship between Lark and Lacey is sweetly developed and eerily set against the cruelly abusive partnership of Lonnie Chevsky and his battered wife, Betty. The plot races along with the threat of more murders heightened by a bone-chilling blizzard. To give more focus to the story, it is set in Thanksgiving week, with characters leaving and visiting, deer hunting still in season and the early winter weather covering all leads with a patina of ice. Lark and Lacey keep fighting their developing attraction, despite getting thrown together at every turn. Some of the rationalizations for their togetherness are a little weak but, overall, the story not only coheres but holds the reader's interest like glue. This is a great read for a night in front of the fireplace. (Jan. 14) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

First in a proposed series to feature grieving Chicago widower Lark Swenson. Swenson moves to frigid Big Oak, Wisconsin, where one of his first tasks as sheriff is to accompany Ann and John Ranson on a tour of their property to look for the body belonging to the booted foot their dogs dragged in. A frozen, badly mashed corpse turns up in a snowbank; and not far off, amid more icy terrain, lies the similarly bludgeoned skeleton of another victim. Calling on the Wisconsin State Police for assistance, Swenson and pretty officer Lacey Smith (on loan) are soon fighting off a blizzard and a sniper who shoots first at Ranson, then at them before they get time to snuggle under quilts together. Meanwhile, the victims are identified as two University of Wisconsin coeds. The suspects include an alcoholic father and son, an earnest young cop, and a batch of Big Oak girls attending UW, where they've been having a fine time experimenting with alternate lifestyles and provoking various parents' chagrin and homophobia. Ann Ranson will be shot at again, concussed, whacked, and dumped into the snow, but Swenson and Lacey (together with the Ranson dogs) will save her. Then (without the dogs) they'll interrogate a couple of townsfolk one more time until the guilty party breaks down and confesses. Lots of snow, romantic tension of the Harlequin kind, and swilling of Diet Coke-so much of the last that you'll wonder whether they took a leaf from Bulgari and got paid for product placement.