The Dead of Winter
From AwardAnnals
| Book: | The Dead of Winter: A John Madden Mystery |
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| Author: | Rennie Airth |
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| Publisher: | Viking Books |
On a freezing London night in 1944, Rosa Novak is brutally murdered during a blackout. The police suspect she was the victim of a random act of violence and might have dropped the case if former police investigator John Madden hadn’t been the victim’s employer.
Madden’s old colleagues at Scotland Yard are working on it, but their scant clues lead them to Europe, where the ravages of the war halt their inquiries. Madden feels he owes it to Rosa to find her killer and pushes the investigation until he stumbles upon the dead girl’s connection to a murdered Parisian furrier, a member of the Resistance, and a stolen cache of diamonds.
With rich psychological insights and vivid historical details, this riveting third novel in the Madden series promises to expand Airth’s readership among discerning fans of crime fiction.
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Reviews
Amazon.com
Slowly but surely, Rennie Airth has been building a reputation as one of the most solid and accomplished practitioners of the intelligent crime thriller, with an ironclad combination of adroit storytelling skills and carefully wrought characterisation (something of a speciality for this author). The Dead of Winter is the latest example of Airth’s finely-honed art, and is as impressive and involving as such predecessors as Rivers of Darkness and The Blood-Dimmed Tide, (the first two parts of this trilogy).
We are once again in the company of troubled copper John Madden, the time period having moved on from the first books to the Second World War. It is the time of Churchill’s radio broadcasts, the blackout and the ever-present threat of V2 bombs. Near the British Museum in London, a young woman refugee from war-torn Poland is killed. She had been engaged as a landgirl on a farm where she had won the affection of the farmer and his wife—and that farmer is John Madden, no longer utilising his detection skills for Scotland Yard. But he is prepared to aid his ex-comrades in this disturbing situation, and utilises his still-keen expertise to dig into the murder. Madden becomes aware that the killer is almost certainly a professional hitman. Why did he murder his Polish victim? It’s up to John Madden to construct a plausible case from a slender assortment of clues—and, what’s more, in the face of considerable personal danger.
Those who read Rennie Airth’s earlier books will need little persuasion to pick The Dead of Winter up; and new readers will be entranced by the carefully constructed narrative and strong sense of period.—Barry Forshaw
