Overview
As the mountain town of Trafalgar, British Columbia, shakes off a long hard winter, famous photographer Rudolph Steiner arrives to do a feature on mountain tourism. Steiner is accompanied by his assistant and sexy young wife, but he has another reason for the visit: to reconnect with the woman who left him twenty-five years ago to marry another man.
Twenty-five years ago she was young, beautiful, naïve, and an internationally known supermodel. Today Eliza Winters is no longer young, and definitely not naïve, but still beautiful and married to Trafalgar City Police Sergeant John Winters.
When Steiner is found dead in his luxury hotel room, shot once in the back of the head, suspicion falls upon Eliza. John Winters is forced into the most difficult decision of his life: loyalty to his job or to his wife. As the RCMP dig into the secrets of both Steiner and Eliza, John Winters slowly comes to realize that he doesn’t know the woman to whom he has been married for twenty-five years as well as he thought he did.
Unable to help the Sergeant, Constable Molly Smith has her own troubles: a series of B&Es has the peaceful town in an uproar, her overprotective Mountie boyfriend is fighting with her colleagues, and a vengeful stalker is watching her every move. When tragedy strikes at the heart of her own family, Molly can’t even turn to her mother, Lucky, for help.
Synopsis
Famous photographer Rudolph Steiner, accompanied by his young wife, visits Trafalgar, British Columbia, to do a feature on mountain tourism. Steiner also plans to re-connect with Eliza Winters, who left him twenty-five years ago to marry Trafalgar City Police Sergeant John Winters. When Steiner is found dead, suspicion falls upon Eliza, and John Winters is forced to decide between loyalty to his job or his wife. Unable to help, Constable Molly Smith has her own troubles: a series of B&Es, her overprotective Mountie boyfriend, and a vengeful stalker watching her every move.
Editorials
Kirkus Reviews
A pair of Trafalgar, Canada, coppers under stress.
After 25 years of marriage, Sergeant John Winters suddenly finds his wife Eliza, a former model, the leading suspect in the murder of fading fashion photographer Rudolph Steiner, who had an incriminating picture of her. If this sounds dire, consider that Constable Molly Smith has no less than three worries. Will her stalker Charlie Bassing stop before he kills her? Will her father survive a nasty fall and the ensuing hip surgery? And should she marry Adam Trocek of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police? Winters, shunted off the Steiner case by a possible conflict of interest, obsessively pursues a series of B&Es that steadily lead him back to possible persons of interest in the Steiner matter. These include the lensman's fifth wife, the daughter of a known Canadian mobster; his brawling assistant, a young woman who demands the return of certain photographs belonging to her; and Steiner's much less successful brother, now working as a handyman at the hotel where Steiner died. Tension escalates between Winters and Eliza. Bassing's behavior toward Molly turns more aggressive. And a member of the RCMP antagonizes the small Trafalgar police force by misassigning blame, leaving Winters to set the error straight while Molly subdues Bassing alone.
Delany (Winter of Secrets, 2009, etc.) combines the crisp plotting of the best small-town police procedurals with trenchant commentary on such universal problems as love and trust.