Review: Cover of Snow by Jenny Milchman

 

I love to discover a new author to rave about. Jenny Milchman is one such writer. Her debut novel grabbed me from the opening sentence, and kept me involved until the very end.  In fact, I hadn't intended to finish it as quickly as I did, but it quickly became apparent that I was not going to be able to put this one down.

Set in the frigid winter of the Adirondacks, the story is about the mystery surrounding the suicide of Brendan Hamilton.  His wife Nora awakes one January morning to find her husband - a member of the Wedeskyul police force - missing, and a sense of foreboding hanging in the air.  When she discovers his body, she immediately calls on his partner and other policemen to help.

As she struggles to deal with Brendan's death, she searches for reasons, all the while facing a stone-wall of hatred from her mother-in-law, and another solid wall of non-cooperation from the police chief and several of his minions. As more and more "accidents" begin to happen to her and her friends, she begins to suspect that something vital is being kept from her.

The reader quickly grasps that there are hidden secrets, there is corruption, that something is rotten here in this small town, but Milchman's skillful writing keeps the suspense building until the very end.  That makes it hard to tell you about the book without spoiling it for you, but it also makes it very easy for me to recommend it highly, and to hope that Ms. Milchman is hard at work on another book. She certainly has shown she has what it takes to give us a good story.

Many thanks to Random House/Ballantine for making the egalley available.

Title: Cover of Snow
Author: Jenny Milchman
Publisher: Random House/Ballantine, (2012) 324 pages
Genre: mystery
Subject: police corruption; family secrets
Setting: fictional town of Wedeskyul  NY
Source: egalley from the publisher via Net Galley
Why did I read this book now?  It was offered to me in the hopes that I would read and review it.